"Patches? We don't need no stinking Patches !" Just say your KCS layout runs up to 03.14.2023. Problem solved...
Only four US "owned" Class 1 freight railroads left now. Which one will fall next? I am betting CSX, followed by NS.
There's a lot of american money behind CP, and an american at the helm. Don't feel as polarised as when the evil CN (The Borg) bought WC.
Disclaimer: I'm not a railroader and didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but watching the state of railroading today lesds me to these conclusions. The ICC should not consider any megamergers with the remaining US class 1s. There's so little competition now as it is. The problems from downsizing workforce and closing yards is putting additional pressure on shippers, and customer service is dying. We see this across the country now. Another megamerger would make it even worse. Am I wrong?
Irony; the KCS Gulfport, MS Branch is a 67 mile orphan line between Gulfport and Hattiesburg. It has two outside connections; CSX at Gulfport and CN at Hattiesburg. I wonder how long before CN, ex-IC between Chicago and Mobile, will say, "Here's $X,XXX,XXX to give me the GPT Branch, take it or leave it, or else I'll block all interchange at Jackson and Hattiesburg."
What people do not seem to comprehend is that the entire point to these rail businesses IS customer service. Meanwhile, the trucking industry gloats. And the hiking/biking folks are waiting for the next added miles to their trail networks.
The "fifth" system is Genesee & Wyoming and the multiple little railroads it owns (plus Freightliner in the UK and the other lines it operates overseas)
The Canadian roads bought the two outliers in the US railroad system, the IC and the KCS. Both of those railroads were odd men out, they were the N-S roads in an area where the predominant traffic was E-W, the KCS mostly west of the Mississippi and the IC mostly east. The major value of the KCS isn't the American lines it's the KCSM and the access to Mexico. The STB (the ICC went away in 1995) has to consider all mergers by law, it doesn't have to approve them. There is actually a commercial disincentive to further mergers because as it stands, the 2 big west roads and the 2 big east roads have the ability to equally access the other roads on the other side if the Mississippi. If the there is an E-W merger then they lose favorable access to half of the other side of the country. If there was a E-W merger proposed it wouldn't be one it would be two, because the other two would pretty much be forced to merge out of self defense. There probably will be very little track abandonment as a result of the CP-KCS merger because there is very little parallel, redundant track and the KCS doesn't have that much spare trackage.
Here's the new logo. I saw a post elsewhere where a fan suggested that it looks like it was removed from the smokebox of a USSR steam locomotive.
I saw that as well. Trying to recall what site.... I have seen many comments about this logo. My thought is they did not expend much effort in the thought process. It is far to much CP, and barely acknowledges KCS.
Remembering the proposed board and management structure from a few months ago, it was the same imbalance.
