Railroad Forums 

  • Merged Companies - why so many after 1976

  • Discussion related to the operations and equipment of Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail) from 1976 to its present operations as Conrail Shared Assets. Official web site can be found here: CONRAIL.COM.
Discussion related to the operations and equipment of Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail) from 1976 to its present operations as Conrail Shared Assets. Official web site can be found here: CONRAIL.COM.

Moderators: TAMR213, keeper1616

 #242891  by JimBoylan
 
To split hairs, on Conveyance Day (4/1/76) ConRail acquired selected parts of the various bankrupt lines and other lines that they owned or controlled. The bankrupt railroads kept what was left over. EL eventually liquidated, I think the stockholders even got some money! PC, RDG, and CNJ are still in business , now named American Premier, Reading International, and Central Jersey Industries. Ann Arbor was snatched back from ConRail in 1977 in some deal involving the State of Michigan. I think L&HR liquidated, I don't know what happened to LV and P-RSL. I think the bankrupt New Haven was still in existence in the late 1970s, but that was a Penn Central transaction.
In the cases of Raritan River, Niagara Jct., P-RSL, and Monongahela, ConRail may have acquired the stock that the bankrupt lines owned. Monongahela was a very special case, Chessie System owned some of the stock until ConRail got all of it in the early 1980s. Did someone else own a few shares of Raritan River until ConRail later bought them out?
 #243054  by TB Diamond
 
The Lehigh Valley Railroad liquidated after April 1, 1976. For several years after 04-01-76 the LVRR Estate was listed in the Official Guide with the notation For Sale: Track, OTM and Real Estate. The last Guide to carry a listing for the LVRR Estate was the November/December, 1980 issue. One of my uncles worked for the LVRR Estate in Sayre packing up items that were sold out of the old Stores Department.

 #244496  by Tom_E_Reynolds
 
I am starting to believe that it was a stock problem that prevented the Raritan River from getting merged into Conrail in 4/1976. I think you maybe right, Jim.

How do I prove that?
 #286255  by s4ny
 
The original Erie Lackawanna shareholders got DERECO shares which eventually became N&W shares and now are Norfolk Southern shares.

DERECO was the vehicle created by N&W to control EL and D&H without being financially responsible for it. Ironically, Norfolk Southern now controls some of those assets for the second time.

The debt investors came out great. Bondholders and other creditors received one new Erie Lackawanna share for each $100 of claim. At first these shares were were worth less than $20/share, but as other investors became aware of the value in the Estate, the shares eventually went way over $100/share.