Harriman, et al

[Anonymous]

Forgive my ignorance, but in context with the S,P,& S article in the magazine, Harriman controlled the Southern Pacific, as well as the UP?

I had fairly well digested the J.J. Hill dynasty of GN,NP, and Burington, and took the discovery of S,P,& S being yet another of his far flung exploits as a learning eexperiance.

But if SP was a pawn of UP, then how could the late 80's proposed merger of Santa Fe and SP have been a possibility?

Forgive my ignorance, but heavens to Uncle Pete batman!!

[Anonymous]

Hello, TheAntiGates,

UP and SP were separate entities by the time of the star-crossed SPSF merger. Harriman acquired control of the UP in 1897, then mortgaged the UP to acquire control of the SP. In 1913, UP was required (by either the Interstate Commerce Commission or the U.S. Supreme Court, I believe) to divest itself of its SP stock. The two railroads maintained a close affiliation, however: SP was allowed to control the former Central Pacific and sent traffic to Ogden, Utah, for the UP to forward eastward.

Eventually, and I think to no real surprise in hindsight, UP gained control of the SP again in 1996 -- this time for keeps.

Hope this helps,

Paul Schmidt
Correspondent
Trains Magazine

[wabash1]

Paul this bit of history is very interesting, If you can i like to have more. In general about the santa fe. where did it fall in this at. I myself dont know what lines they had or where they ran from and to. I am aware of the fact that the bn merged with them hince forth the bnsf. what is the history of them before the merger?

[Anonymous]

Hello Wabash,

The history of the Santa Fe, the UP, and SP would take a long time to tell. I just gave the juicy parts re: the Harriman era of UP and SP. While there are several good books out about all three railroads, I recommend checking the Web sites of their respective historical societies, which you can access from the nav bar on the left-hand side of this page.

I can say that Santa Fe was a very desired merger partner. However, the Interstate Commerce Commission shocked the industry when it nixed the SPSF merger in the mid-1980s. It seemed such a sure deal that both railroads had repainted rolling stock and locomotives in a new "Kodachrome" paint scheme of yellow and red.

The BNSF merger really forced UP's hand into merging the SP. It would have happened eventually, I believe, but the operational straits UP experienced for two to three years reflect in some measure a reactive posture borne of urgency to catch up with BNSF, rather than the relatively smooth transitions it experienced after merging Western Pacific and Missouri Pacific in the early 1980s and Missouri-Kansas-Texas in the late 1980s.

Regards,

Paul Schmidt

[wabash1]

thanks for the info i will look into this later as work calls.

[Anonymous]

Paul,

Thanks!! That definitely goes in the "I didn't know that" bin.

Since you seem to know your "pacifics" Distinguish for me if you will between "Central Pacific" and "Western Pacific"

I just always assumed one begat the other, but perhaps have been in error?

(tia)

[edblysard]

Rick,
Go to the top of this page, click on the Trains magazine spot, then go left, click on the history of railroading. Has a list of "family trees" of most railroads. Has quite a few interesting facts, good short reading.
And, just to add to this, Edward Harriman's widow founded a award for railroads, based on their safty performance, known as the Harriman award, it has several classes, for class 1, 2, short lines and terminal and switching roads. A gold, for first, then silver and bronze,2nd and 3rd. Railroads compete for the awards, as they are a somewhat prestigious award.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[Anonymous]

Hill bought the CB&Q in the early 20th century before 1910. Harriman somewhat coveted the CB&Q because he needed a way for his UP to have access to Chicago. Harriman waited for Hill to be out West in his private car then started buying NP stock to pressure the Q out of Hill. Hill owned less thean 50% of the NP. Hill and Harriman got in a bidding war over the NP and caused the price to rise to $1000 a share. Needless to say this was very disruptive to the stock market esecially to those that had sold NP stock short. The government finally stepped in and brought abot a resolution. One of the conditions was that the CB&Q would never build to the West coast. I believe Overton tells the story better than I in his book the History of the CB&Q.

[Anonymous]

Western Pacific was the idea of Jay Gould, who owned the Rio Grande, Missouri Pacific, Western Maryland, and Wabash, and wanted a transcontinental system. WP was incorporated in 1903 to build between Salt Lake City (D&RGW's western terminus) and San Francisco. The golden spike was driven in 1909.

Central Pacific was a predecessor of Southern Pacific, and was the western arm of the transcontinental railroad that linked with Union Pacific in 1869 near Promontory, Utah. The UP (nee SP) line over Donner Pass is part of the original CP right of way.

Hope this helps,

Paul

[Anonymous]

Way cool!! Thanks

That would have been about the time That the nickle plate was being wafted under the nose of both Gould as well as Vanderbilt in a "You know you don't want that other guy to get it"! bidding war bait..

[Anonymous]

I know very little about railroads but one thing has alway's confused me. When Conrail was up for sale why didn't Union Pacific or BNSF buy it? We could have had a coast to coast railroad with no interchange problems like we have today. (I could be wrong but I believe I read were interchanging in Chicago takes a whole day on a coast to coast train.)
TIM A

[Anonymous]

Vanderbilt acquired in the NKP in 1882, acing out Jay Gould's bid to use it for his transcon system. NKP went bankrupt in 1887, but never became part of NYC System. The Van Sweringen bought it in 1916, and it eventually became one of the jewels of Midwest and western Northeast.

Paul

[Anonymous]

Hello Tim,

It wasn't quite that simple. When CSX and Conrail announced their plans in October 1996 to merge, NS saw a threat to its future, and successfully muscled in to get part of the action. That's one reason why NS has 42 percent of Conrail while CSX has 58 percent.

BNSF and UP weren't invited to the party, and certainly were not able to crash it. UP was in no condition financially or operationally to take on a merger with the SP deal under way (and the subsequent operational snafus that resulted). BNSF was still getting Santa Fe and Burlington Northern to play nice together. That's probably one reason CSX moved when it did -- other possible Conrail suitors were distracted elsewhere.

It's also questionable whether the Surface Transportation Board would have signed on to a Conrail/BNSF or Conrail/UP deal due to concerns about loss of competition.

Those are my thoughts,

Paul Schmidt

[Anonymous]

Excellant question!!

I can only speculate, that the timing was wrong for both UP and BNSF having digestion problems of their own, and con rail brought with it certain problems that would be resource intensive to resolve.

My best guess anyway.


Last summer, a NS maintenance of way crew told me they had heard of discussion that BNSF was keenly interested in buying the old Wabash line from St Louis to Detroit. Whether anything ever comes of it is a separate matter, buy it does show the interest is still there

[Anonymous]

Gould-Vanderbilt and later the Van Sweringens:


Overall, one of my favo rr stories. Wi***rains mag would put more "historical business context" war stories in their mag, I eat stuff like that up.

One account I read of the Nickle Plate insists it was built from day one as a plan to play the greed of Gould against the ambition of Vanderbilt, with profits of the ensuing bidding war the prime mission statement,...and only by accident building a winner from an operation of a railroad point of view. Which the Van Sweringen's saw and exploited nicely.

The context of the article being Gould and Vanderbilt saw only the real estate, while the Van Sweringen's saw a railroad...interesting story.