look at history

Take a look at what happened to Conrail when it was split between CSX and NS, and it would pretty much be the same if they bought out G.

flash back;
"Between 1997-1999 CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway, struck a compromise agreement to jointly acquire Conrail and split most of its assets between them, with Norfolk Southern acquiring a larger portion of the Conrail network via a larger stock buyout".


So are there more trains, jobs and customers today? anyone care to respond with some data on that?

A NS buyout would be nothing like the Conrail split. Read "The Men Who Loved Trains".

Also with GRS being private, it would most likely be a GRS favored deal.

As for the RR after the deal, you may see fewer trains, but larger in length on rehabilitated lines.

SPACEMONKEY wrote:Take a look at what happened to Conrail when it was split between CSX and NS, and it would pretty much be the same if they bought out G.

flash back;
"Between 1997-1999 CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway, struck a compromise agreement to jointly acquire Conrail and split most of its assets between them, with Norfolk Southern acquiring a larger portion of the Conrail network via a larger stock buyout".


So are there more trains, jobs and customers today? anyone care to respond with some data on that?

I don't know much about CSX or NS except their stock prices have done well since the deal. Certainly one benefit from the split was that Guilford was released from the stranglehold Conrail had gotten on them over the years since the D&H bankruptcy. The Guilford West End was brought back to life by NS having access to the D&H to move traffic in and out of New England, especially coal and intermodal.

There was no stranglehold on Guilford by Conrail. Guilford elected to
have Conrail classify (at Selkirk) some cars and deliver them to Guilford
at Ayer by Conrail trains with Conrail crews.
Guilford always had the connections with the Delaware and Hudson on
the west end of their railroad and the connection with Conrail at RJ was
always kept available too.
Noel Weaver

GRS is no where close to the size conrail was, also it wouldn't be split into 2 if just NS bought it (Unless of course NS just bought Districts 2-4 and sold D1) It wouldn't be a hard transition.

Noel Weaver wrote:There was no stranglehold on Guilford by Conrail. Guilford elected to
have Conrail classify (at Selkirk) some cars and deliver them to Guilford
at Ayer by Conrail trains with Conrail crews.
Guilford always had the connections with the Delaware and Hudson on
the west end of their railroad and the connection with Conrail at RJ was
always kept available too.
Noel Weaver

Granted, Guilford enjoyed the relationship; and wasn't forced into it, but there was a lot of traffic through Selkirk and Worcester. At one point, there was only one freight a day each way between Mohawk Yard and Ayer. The D&H connection had become a token one, at best. At one time two through freights a day in each direction (NESE/SENE, LASE/SELA), plus one auto rack train in each direction moved through CP-45 in Worcester, up the P&W Gardner Branch to Guilford's single track Worcester main line and up to Ayer. The rails were rusty at Hoosac, East Deerfield was a ghost town. I recall that what Rotterdam traffic that was left was hauled on the single Mohawk train and would get dropped/picked up at Crescent.
Of course you can always look at how dramatically the traffic patterns changed after the NS got access to Conrail routes in the Northeast, and wonder if Guilford really had any other practical choice than to interchange the bulk of their own traffic with CR through Worcester.