The Wabash from Springfield IL to KC is the most obvious surplus line, although CN already asked for the KCS line from Springfield across Missouri in the CPKC merger so I'll bet they ask for the Wabash. NS would give up their trackage rights on CN to Chicago and use the UP/ GM&O north of Springfield. BNSF would want the Streator Connection from Streator to the east Chicago area on the old NYC Kankakee Belt and Cairo lines. Does CPKC get a line to Chicago from Springfield, as a backup to their KC line through Iowa?

Would love to hear from the preservation groups out there how they believe this will change things for them. We know UP doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation when it comes to allowing movements of historical equipment.

This should not be allowed to happen. No more mega-mergers - railroad or any other kind.

GENTLEMEN (and the Ladies that come here too):

Even discussing the potential impact of this (proposed) merger on rail preservation is an exercise in futility.

Discussing the impact of the (proposed) merger on rail preservation is bound to either be #19,756 on the list of "comments" to the "Surf Board," or get you laughed right out of Washington.

And there are more pressing things to worry about than whether (as too many are speculating or begging online in the past 48 hours) UP Big Boy 4014 will soon run on the Horse Shoe Curve/past "your house"......

I've wondered for a long, long time when, not if, we were going to wind up with two transcon systems. This really shouldn't be a surprise. The only real surprise would be a minimal service disruption due to cultural and operational indigestion.

How it may affect preservation is that these would be end to end expansions, not a consolidation and divestment of redundant lines which could be spun off to "friendlies". All four players have already trimmed rosters to the minimum so I don't expect much in the way of surplus equipment being available, either. I expect UP's culture to prevail so any mainline moves just might disappear completely or become prohibitively expensive.

My two cents....

ya no one involved with the merging parties could care about preservation etc.
Hopefully the merger won't go through. Surely every shipper group and union out there will come out strong against it.

I think the biggest risk of it going through is just the current DOJ, and STB, and a little money here, a little money there and magically it's all a done deal. hopefully i am wrong.

Given the success of UP taking over the C&NW and SP and the resultant meltdowns and year long disasters, this one could put both of those into the dustbin of history by its sheer potential for disaster.

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern to Create America’s First Transcontinental Railroad Seriously ?! https://www.up.com/press-releases/growt ... -nr-250729

Then I guess this one Does Not Count ! America's first transcontinental railroad >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_tra ... l_railroad

Mr. Starr

If you want to rise to "Sheldon Cooper" levels of geekdom, point out that the Panama Railroad spanned a continent from Atlantic to Pacific........ in 1855, fourteen years before the Gold Spike at Promontory, Utah..........

Given the current state of US/Canadian relations I think neither the CN or CPKC will get more than crumbs as long as Trump is President. Especially since Canadian law doesn't allow foreign ownership of their RRs while we allowed them to buy multiple US roads over the last 100+ years. Remember when the BNSF made rumbling about merging with the CN some years ago it would have had to been a Canadian based company.

If nothing else, this merger idea certainly explains the sudden and rapid demise of what was left of the UP's historic equipment collection in Cheyenne (see Mike Pannel's post about moving the cabooses at the drop of a hat).

Seems that such collections are amongst the first things to go when a merger is discussed, as happened with the Santa Fe's collection when the SP/SF merger idea came about.

Jason Midyette

Of course only UP really does have historic equiptment outside of OCS cars.

As much of a "folk hero" type persona that Buffet tries to have in interviews etc I always thought he'd have wanted to do more with like 3751/ 261 trips etc even just for employees, but that's long gone. NS/CSX really have zero interest outside of helping with some moves.
It will be interesting to see how the current administration handles it. They will likely somehow want/get a kickback or something, but who knows. I'd think every union, shipper group and what not would voraciously oppose it.

If it goes through the last thing on anyone's mind will be anything related to historic equipment or helping 765 get moved around etc. NS/UP would have be in such as clusterF. just trying to move the bare min of trains and keeping things flowing.

First transcon, but not a single railroad. So I'll give them that one.

However, last time I checked Canada was in North America.
CP and CN are both transcontinental. Why don't they count?

PG&E is a public agency. Seems like there's a fair chance that's in some archive someplace?

Oh no, looks like the Thoroughbred of Transportation is pretty much off to the glue factory, huh Eric? :)