What if? (NYSW and Conrail)

I have been wondering what if the NYSW merged into Conrail. The NYSW was in poor finanacial shape in the late 1960s and early 70s and wondered if it ever considered being part of Conrail. It was among the few Northeastern roads that did not fold however. But what if? Had NYSW entered into Conrail, what would have happened instead?

It would have been a secondary track around Passaic Junction and a slim possibility out as far as Butler but no farther.
It would never have had the resurrection that took place under Delaware Otsego in the mid 80's.
Very little of it would be in operation today.
Noel Weaver

Actually NYSW emerged around and out of CR by taking track and business CR didn't want...the whole Northern Division for example.

Why are we talking about being taken over by Conrail in the past tense? Give it a year and they still might!

SecaucusJunction wrote:Why are we talking about being taken over by Conrail in the past tense? Give it a year and they still might!

That's what you've been saying for a year now. How many years are we supposed to give it before you give up?

R36 Combine Coach wrote:But what if? Had NYSW entered into Conrail, what would have happened instead?

Wonder no more! The NYSW was dead west of Butler when Conrail came around in 1976, but they weren't bankrupt. For whatever reason, they weren't considered part of the recovery plan. If Conrail took over their property, you never would have had the emergence of the Northern Division, you never would have had stack trains, and you certainly wouldn't have yellowjacket SD70s. An NYSW taken over by Conrail would be no NYSW at all.

-otto-

The following dates all the way back to the late 60's. When the Pennsylvania and the New York Central wanted to merge the
feds dictated that the New Haven and the New York, Susquehanna and Western be included in the merged railroad. The
Penn and Central managements could not come to an agreement with the ownership of the NYS&W as to financial and other
terms and they mutually agreed that the Susquehanna would continue as a separate railroad. I believe what prevented this
from happening was that the Susquehanna owned some valuable waterfront and other property in New Jersey which the
merged Penn Central did not see the value in this property.
At this time the Susquehanna had active interchange arrangements with the Pennsylvania, New York Central as well as the
Erie Lackawanna.
Had this takeover come about, the Susquehanna would have disappeared even sooner than 1976 or at least most of it
would have.
Noel Weaver

Otto Vondrak wrote: Wonder no more! The NYSW was dead west of Butler when Conrail came around in 1976, but they weren't bankrupt. For whatever reason, they weren't considered part of the recovery plan.
-otto-

Actually, the NYS&W filed for bankruptcy in 1976 - I don't remember the month, but I think it was shortly after the April 1 creation of Conrail. The NYS&W had been majority owned by Irving Maidman who had plundered the company (a series of bargain basement real estate sales from the NYS&W to his other companies, then those companies resold at a huge profit - this was done to avoid payment on NYS&W income bonds) and ran it into the ground. The 1976 default was because of not paying property taxes.

The first plan was to simply abandon the entire railroad. This cause an uproar and the trustee moved to sell the railroad as a going concern. Several companies besides Delaware Otsego looked at it - one was the group that today owns the Arkansas & Missouri. DO leased the line in 1980 but didn't complete the purchase of the bankrupt company until 1982.

njmidland wrote:Actually, the NYS&W filed for bankruptcy in 1976... DO leased the line in 1980 but didn't complete the purchase of the bankrupt company until 1982.

Thank you for the details and correcting me. I thought purchase by the DO was a result of the bankruptcy- ie, more immediately related.

-otto-