Tag Archives: mergers

Railroad History

RAILROAD MERGERS

In this blog we write about American Railroad Mergers that took place in the 20th Century era. Railroads became a profitable form of transportation. But by the 1950s, things were changing. Until the government gave the railroads more power to adjust rates, truck and automobile traffic increased with highways being built, a shifting economy, bad weather, and bad management caused the railroads to lose business and profits.

The Penn Central always got the worst reputation for a failed railroad company, however many of the other railroads were also were going bankrupt, or had their share of troubles in all areas (such as the LV, EL, RDG, C of NJ, L&H, etc.).

Mergers were a result of the hardships, and were suppose to help with their struggles. “Suppose to” is the key here. Although a few actually made sense and worked out in the long-run, most of the mergers that happened from the 1950s-21st Century made little sense, or did not produce the good results they tried to forcast. For example the Burlington Northern and Erie-Lackawanna mergers were parallel line mergers, did not really save the companies money, and were disasters. Their problems were just more hidden, compared to all the publicity the failed Penn Central merger received.

The ICC regulated and granted or denied permissions for all railroad mergers. The ICC later became the Surface Transportation Board (STC). In a lot of cases they denied mergers that would have made sense, and allowed those that resulted in more harm than good.

Below is a list of railroad mergers and the years they happened (bold faced names were the main railroads that took over the added railroad):

-Pere Marquette + C&O
-Erie + Lackawanna = Erie-Lackawanna (1961)
–Norfolk & Western + Virginian (1959) + NKP + Wabash (1964) + AC&Y (1970s ) + Illinois Terminal (1980s)
-CB&Q + Great Northern + Northern Pacific = Burlington Northern (1970)
-Pennsylvania + New York Central = Penn Central (1968) + New Haven (1969)
-C&O + B&O + Wester Maryland = Chessie System (1972)
-Southern Pacific + Rio Grande  (They continued to use the SP name however)
–Union Pacific + Southern Pacific + C&NW + MP
-Illinois Central + Gulf Mobile & Ohio = ICG
-Lehigh Valley + EL + Reading + CNJ + PC = Conrail (1976)
–Conrail + CSX / Conrail + NS (1999)
-N&W + Southern = Norfolk Southern (1982)
-Chessie System + Seaboard System = CSX (1986)
-L&N + Seaboard Coast Line = Seaboard System/Family Lines
-BN + ATSF = BNSF (1990s)
–Rock Island was the only railroad that was left to fail with no help.  Later all assets were dived up between the UP & C&NW.
-SOO Line + CP
-GT + CV + CN

Which mergers were failures, and which mergers were winners?  All mergers had their share of problems.  The BN merger was not a great as most have thought.  They had their times of congestion, workers retaliating against the merger, money losses, and more.  The PC had many hardships, the EL also had hardships, and was not a success.  Most of the mergers had problems with parallel lines, money losses, congestion of trains across the system, not enough locomotivepower, failed equipment, lack of funds for maintenance, bad track, dirty and old equipment, losses due to weather, and more problems.

The only merger that came out shining was the Norfolk Southern merger (Norfolk & Western + Southern), in the early 1980s.  Both railroads were profitable, efficient, and need to expand.  NS became a highly efficient and money-making merged railroad.  They too had their problems during the Conrail split in 199 with CSX, but eventually pulled through.

What will the future mergers be like?  We will see when it happens.  It’s not a question of if, but what.  there are current prospects of UP merging with CSX, NS with BNSF, or of the Canadian roads of CN and CP.  Railroads are in the business of making money mainly by transporting goods in a country.  As long as there’s materials needed in building and expanding, and consumers, railroads will be needed.

Check out our other blogs for more railroad stories, information, and more.  Also check out our DVD & CD listings of what we have available for purchase, that can give you a more detailed look at the railroads involved in these mergers.

© Copyright 1/2019. PJ 1-West Productions™  Public transmitting, modification, copying prohibited.     

N&W, NS, Penn Central, Penn Central, Railroad General Discussions, Railroad History, SOU

Penn Central, NYC, PRR, NH, & Conrail

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The Penn Central, NYC, PRR, NH, & Conrail- one topic I’m really familiar with is the Penn Central Railroad. I’ve written extensively on this subject for some years, and even have another website dedicated to this railroad. Although there were many people who despised that railroad, it still played a very important part of keeping America’s economy flowing, regardless of its mis-haps. Those of us in the younger generations appreciate the PC for what it was, and the very wide range of modeling that can be done with it.

The PC was the joining of the New York Central, Pennsylvania, and later the New Haven Railroads. The NYC & PRR were joined in 1968, and the NH in 1969. The NYC and PRR were great competitors originally, with parallel routes. The NH was considered mostly a passenger road, with some TOFC trains, and the PC did not want to include them in their merger. However the ICC required them to take in the NH, if they wanted the ICC to approve the PC merger in the first place.

The new PC at the time seemed like it was going to work in the beginning, then hard times came. Unfortunately many factors happened, which caused the merger to fail in 1970. Factors were corrupt management, investments spread too wide, government regulations on rates that the railroad was allowed to charge to its customers, competition with trucks and air, deferred maintenance of facilities, tracks, and equipment, weather-related catastrophes (hurricanes, floods, severe winters, etc.), lack of freight cars, locomotives, and cabooses, parallel routes, and the government not allowing the railroads to abandon older secondary routes not needed by the railroads throughout the country.

Many would say that the PC was the only railroad merger in the States to have paralleled routes that failed or plagued with problems, and the only railroad to have dirty and run-down equipment, loosing money everyday, bad track, and corruption. But history and many good sources say that was not the case. Many US railroad mergers and companies, especially in the Midwest and East were in the same trouble. In fact, the ONLY Class 1 railroad that had fewer problems, especially during this time was the Santa Fe. Also the only merger that actually worked with fewer problems was the NS merger between the N&W and SOU later in the 1980s!

Finally the government had to step in to help, or an economic catastrophe was on the way. Conrail was formed and took over the PC, EL, RDG, LV, & CNJ- all that were in the same situations as the PC. CR grew a profit in the 1980s, and was taken over by NS & CSX in the late 1990s.

The PC is a favorite to many in modeling, studying, photo collecting, and more.  They had many paint scheme variations, colors, equipment types, unique colors, great facilties, yards, and more.  The PC was not a separate company that came and took over the NYC, PRR, and NH- they were simply the combining of these roads, just under a new name. And some say the PC lived on even under CR, since most of CR’s operations, tracks, equipment, personnel were PC. These days the PC is getting more difficult to see, as equipment is being replaced, things changed, etc. May the PC live on!

DVDs to check out:

-You can see some history about the PC on Revelation’s Penn Central DVD HERE.  Just one of many PC DVDs out there that has material the others do not have.

-Also a DVD about the NYC (by Revelation) HERE

-Many great DVDs with CONRAIL can be found in Keith’s Trains Series™ HERE

 

(Sources one should read that backup these facts are:  Wreck Of The Penn Central, Merging Lines, Penn Central Power, just to name a few!)

© Copyright 2015 PJ/1-WP™