Possible Mergers

I have been thinking of possible railroad mergers. I'll put forth some ideas, hearing some input would be awesome. How do you think it would affect the railroad world today? Do you think the companies would survive? How feasible would this have been? Let's imagine these mergers occuring in 1955.

Gulf, Mobile, & Ohio-Missouri Pacific

Boston & Maine-Maine Central

Union Pacific-Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific

New York Central-Chicago & North Western

Louisville & Nashville-Norfolk & Western

Well the B&M and Maine Central would probably be the same as they are now since they merged into GRS. I would think the Rock Island and UP would have gone down still. And I can't comment on the rest since I don't know as much about them.

PRSL22 wrote:I have been thinking of possible railroad mergers. I'll put forth some ideas, hearing some input would be awesome. How do you think it would affect the railroad world today? Do you think the companies would survive? How feasible would this have been? Let's imagine these mergers occuring in 1955.

Gulf, Mobile, & Ohio-Missouri Pacific

Boston & Maine-Maine Central

Union Pacific-Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific

New York Central-Chicago & North Western

Louisville & Nashville-Norfolk & Western

My impression is that the Interstate Commerce Commision was not very merger friendly in the 1950's though of course one of the first big modern mergers, Erie Lackawanna, happened in 1958.
But I'll play, How about:

Rock Island/Denver & Rio Grande Western/Western Pacific(I believe part of the ICC master plan in the mid 1920's?)-Could also include MP

Chicago,Milwaukee, St.Paul & Pacific/Chicago Northwestern(proposed but never achieved as was your UP/Rock Island merger)

Chicago Great Western/Missouri-Kansas-Texas(and possibly G,M & O and/or the Frisco)

The Alphabet Route-NKP/P&WV/W&LE/WM/Reading/L&HR/CNJ/New Haven (again the ICC favored this grouping at one point)

Erie/DL&W/LV/Reading/CNJ (later proposed as Mid Atlantic Rail to provide competition with PC/Conrail)

Include D&H (and maybe BAR) with B&M/MEC and create an earlier, more successful and hopefully, better managed version of Guilford/PAR

Of course by the 90's the first three RR's merge into a third western supersystem while the last 3 merge to compete with CSX and NS after the Conrail split......................................

In the first round, I am most interested in the New York Central-Chicago & North Western. This one
never made Professor Ripley's ICC proposals http://www.barrysbest.net/OminousWeather/Mergers.html

Is your interest as a "Chicago Bypass"? See http://www.barrysbest.net/OminousWeathe ... ypass.html
NY Central already pathways around Chicago (Kankakee Belt Line and the Joliet Cutoff), but neither was used to the extent they
could have been.

OK, so where did Chicago & North Western go that would have interested New York Central?
Kansas City?
Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Wyoming???
NYC already went to St Louis
Hook up with a partner and become transcontinental. Interesting. How aboup Uncler Pete????

The "Alphabet Routes" that were proposed:

The Alphabet Route-NKP/P&WV/W&LE/WM/Reading/L&HR/CNJ/New Haven had some possibilities but
Erie/DL&W/LV/Reading/CNJ was too limited in scope. There are some variations and permutations at
http://www.geocities.com/penney_vanderb ... Route.html

Most interesting variations are throwing D&H and O&W into the mix. Sort of creating a "super railroad" centered around Maybrook.

...Ken

I recently bought an interesting book titled "Merging Lines: American Railroads 1900-1970" by Richard Saunders Jr.

Many lines merged and subsequently separated well before the modern merge era that began in the late 1950s.

Yes, before the "modern" era, government stopped:cancelled a lot of mergers. One example, Nickel Plate into NY Central. Lots of others too.
...Ken

Lots of mergers that looked like they would have been successful were usually stopped by what I'd call "board room factors." For instance, the Nickel Plate and the Lackawanna would have made a great system! End-to-end, Chicago to Hoboken, probably would have been good competition for the Erie (and maybe some other routes, too). They were already huge interchange partners at Buffalo and often ran through passenger service over each other's rails. So what happened? While both roads had declining revenue sheets, the Lackawanna carried a massive debt load. Try to convince the NKP board of directors that they need to take on this strategic route... and all of the crushing debt that comes with it. Besides from just owing people money, it would drastically lower the credit rating of a combined NKP-DLW, which would hinder them from borrowing money to buy new equipment, maintain the right of way, etc... Instead, NKP became part of the growing N&W system and the Lackawanna merged with the parallel Erie.

So in short, mergers that seem "logical" to us railfans just don't make sense in the boardroom and on the ledger sheets.

-otto-

O.K., how about Wabash-Frisco-Rio Grande-Western Pacific?

One set of possibilities which has always fascinated me was the number of potential partners for the Chicago Great Western: GM&O, KCS, MKT come immediately to mind, but all of those would have been handicapped by weak financing and the presence of strong competitors with better-engineered routes.

On the other hand, a union with either Santa Fe or Missouri Pacific might have become the "anchor" for a system strong enough to avoid having to be mega-merged into either Burlington Northern or Union Pacific.

Of course, as it turned out, CGW was absorbed into paralell, but not-that-healthy C&NW, and almost all its mileage became redundant.

2nd trick op wrote:One set of possibilities which has always fascinated me was the number of potential partners for the Chicago Great Western: GM&O, KCS, MKT come immediately to mind, but all of those would have been handicapped by weak financing and the presence of strong competitors with better-engineered routes.

On the other hand, a union with either Santa Fe or Missouri Pacific might have beome the "anchor" for a system strong enough to avoid having to be mega-merged into either Burlington Northern or Union Pacific.

Of course, as it turned out, CGW was absorbed into paralell, but not-that-healthy C&NW, and almost all its mileage became redundant.

Also, remember that the Soo Line was CGW's last serious suitor before the C&NW came about. The combined system would have had no track redundancy, save the Boom Island Yard in Minneapolis. They'd have given the Soo another Chicago main (though no faster than their own), plus access to Kansas City and Omaha. Even if the Soo had still purchased the Milwaukee Road, the CGW Mason City - Omaha and probably Marshalltown - Kansas City lines would still be in place.

Continuing about Midwestern railroads, for many years the Minneapolis & St. Louis was under the aegis of the Illinois Central before being forced to strike out on its own (bankruptcy-ridden) path. Could've been a powerful Upper Midwestern competitor to the C&NW and MILW, had the IC pumped money into the line in the very late 1800s.

The one that fascinates me though is the 1890s Northern Pacific - Wisconsin Central system. It's not as direct from St. Paul to Chicago, but at the time, it was the only Chicago-Pacific railroad. With part-ownership of the DSS&A, and very likely eventual ownership of the CM&StP (to counter JJ Hill's Burlington), it would have been as formidable a system as any could have been in 1910.