What would have happened if Chessie System had purchased the eastern end of the EL and owned the Reading in 1976? What would the Northeastern rail system look like? Would New York be served by Conrail and Chessie System from 1976 to the 1990s? What would have happened to the D&H; would Chessie gone out and purchased that line from N&W? During the Reagan years, would NS had gone out and successfully purchased all of Conrail or would Conrail had survived until the ultimate NS/CSX breakup?
The Reading was not offered to the Chessie System, portions of it were very vital to the plans of Conrail and in fact became key portions of their main lines through Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Not too much of the EL was really important to Conrail, they were sort of stuck with it when Chessie backed out, I have my doubts if the Chessie was ever really sincere about the EL in the first place.
Noel Weaver