Messed Up Merger Monday
The Santa Fe–Southern Pacific merger was an attempted corporate consolidation of two of the major railroads in the Western United States at the time: the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and the Southern Pacific Railroad. The approximately US$5 billion deal was announced in September 1983 and in December 1983, both companies were acquired by a new holding company, the Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corporation Both companies' extensive non-railroad related assets were immediately combined. However, the Southern Pacific Railroad remained in a voting trust and the railroads continued to be operated independently and competitively while the merger worked through the regulatory process.
In March 1984, the companies asked the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) for approval to merge their railroads. Confident the deal would be approved, the company began repainting their locomotives into a new unified paint scheme that would allow the future railroad to be called SPSF.
I July of 1986 the ICC denied the merger and gave the companies two years to split assets.
Five years after the failed attempt I'm in a dry dusty barren landscape on the outer edge of the 40 Mile Desert in the ghost town of Hazen, Nevada. The ghost of SPSF lives on in the form of the "Kodachrome" paint scheme applied to two of the EMD's in this consist.
Both railroads would seek merger alternatives in the near future. Southern Pacific with the Denver, Rio Grande & Western, and Santa Fe with the Burlington Northern.
Thank WikiP for an easier caption than I could do mysylf.
Messed Up Merger Monday
The Santa Fe–Southern Pacific merger was an attempted corporate consolidation of two of the major railroads in the Western United States at the time: the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and the Southern Pacific Railroad. The approximately US$5 billion deal was announced in September 1983 and in December 1983, both companies were acquired by a new holding company, the Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corporation Both companies' extensive non-railroad related assets were immediately combined. However, the Southern Pacific Railroad remained in a voting trust and the railroads continued to be operated independently and competitively while the merger worked through the regulatory process.
In March 1984, the companies asked the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) for approval to merge their railroads. Confident the deal would be approved, the company began repainting their locomotives into a new unified paint scheme that would allow the future railroad to be called SPSF.
I July of 1986 the ICC denied the merger and gave the companies two years to split assets.
Five years after the failed attempt I'm in a dry dusty barren landscape on the outer edge of the 40 Mile Desert in the ghost town of Hazen, Nevada. The ghost of SPSF lives on in the form of the "Kodachrome" paint scheme applied to two of the EMD's in this consist.
Both railroads would seek merger alternatives in the near future. Southern Pacific with the Denver, Rio Grande & Western, and Santa Fe with the Burlington Northern.
Thank WikiP for an easier caption than I could do mysylf.