Central of Georgia and Parent Railroads

[CPF363]

In the early part of the 20th century, the Central of Georgia was controlled by E. H. Harriman. He sold it a few years later to the Illinois Central, who ended up losing it by the end of the 1940s. Then the Frisco took control in the mid 1950s attempting to create a large railroad running from the Atlantic Ocean to Kansas and Texas. The ICC ended up frowning on this system, so the Frisco decided to sell it to the Southern Railway. My question is say either the IC or the Frisco remained in control of the CG, how would the south look today? Could it be possible for three large rail systems to exist in the south, e.g. the Southern, Seaboard and either IC-CG or Frisco-CG? Both the IC and the Frisco had direct connections to the CG through the Birmingham, so it would have produced an end to end merger for either carrier. In the modern mergers, most especially the merger that created the Seaboard Coast Line, could the owner of the CG look to gain access to the Florida market via ACL's Albany, GA to Tampa route, it being a logical extension of the CG (a line that is no longer a through route today). In the end, would NS or CSX try to gain control of the merged system in the end?