Mergers: What if ?

[Anonymous]

I often wonder where we would be now if:
Santa Fe and Conrail had merged, BN and NS merged, UP & CSX, and the SP and CNW (not that I wanted to see this happen to any road) were divided up. Somehow I just see these combinations has much more viable than what we have now. What do you think?

[thirdrail1]

None of these were likely to occur First, the volume of rail traffic moving transcontinentally is quite small and fairly evenly divided among the eastern and western carriers, so that, for example, if BNSF merged with NS, the traffic gained would be equally offset by the loss of BNSF-CSXT traffic. The SP and ATSF would have merged if the management had not considered it such a foregone conclusion that the locomotive fleet was already being painted in merger colors. Before that, Seaboard Coast Line and SP looked at merging, but ran into the traffic diversion problem. The Conrail breakup goes back to what was originally proposed in the 1940's and early 1950's, with C&O allied to NYC and PRR allied to N&W. If the ICC had not made Robert R. Young divest C&O or NYC (he picked the wrong one to sell), thing s might have been different. ATSF was interested in the Erie-Lackawanna main line, to move intermodal traffic, but did not want the rest of Conrail.

[Anonymous]

unfortunately this scenario would have ultimately led to something else, because you have the SP-CNW as the only none transcontinental. as the odd one out, something would eventually have to give, perhaps a split of SP-CNW, a la Conrail. at the time of the merger w/UP, folks that worked for SP were hoping CSX would be our white knight and save us from the Yella'Belly's, but they didn't so i guess we're stuck with 'em for now.