CP take over of the EL?

One of my friends have told me that CP Rail was really wanted to purchase the EL from the estates and Conrail, but only could get some of the track in New York.

Part of the deal that expanded the Delaware & Hudson to serve as "competition" for Conrail included the right to purchase the former EL from Binghamton to Buffalo, should Conrail choose to abandon or downgrade the line. The D&H and later CP maintained trackage rights on this line from 1976 until after NS took it over. There was some rumbling about CP purchasing it at a couple of points in the 1990s but they ultimately chose not to and Conrail instead spent some money upgrading the line. One of the reasons I think for not buying it is the Letchworth gorge bridge, which is not in great shape, and will be big money to replace.

ELSFRR wrote:One of my friends have told me that CP Rail was really wanted to purchase the EL from the estates and Conrail, but only could get some of the track in New York.

I think you're confused.

The D&H was granted trackage rights over the former EL line in 1976 as a result of the Conrail merger. In 1991, Canadian Pacific purchased D&H, and with it, they got the rights over the former EL. CP was in negotiations to purchase the Southern Tier from Conrail, but Conrail broke off in 1993.

Huh, I thought that CP was interseted in the EL, shows what I know.

Before Conrail Day there were at Two lines interested, although nothing came of it. An internal memo at AT&SF outlined a purchase/takeover/capital expansion plan but that the never made it to consideration by the Board of Directors at AT&SF. EL was one of AT&SF's biggest interchange partners.

The other (more serious) one was an offer by the Chessie System to buy the EL from Sterling, OH east. This was part of a larger scheme to save the Reading lines and some service in Delaware (which would have been bought by the Southern).

Roger Grant's book outlines both of them.

There were a couple of non-railroad interests that looked into buying the EL as well.

There was a Pre-Conrail dealing between CP and EL--the possible rental of some passenger cars by the NY State for the EL to operate a Binghamton-Port Jervis-Hoboken train. That never happened.

The CP interest in purchasing the southern tier (ie, after EL had been folded into CR) was quite serious.

It got as far as investigating in detail what the environmental liabilities would be. In the 1991-92 time frame, I was the project manager for investigation and cleanup of a bunch of Superfund hazardous waste sites in Elmira and Corning, and was approached by a bunch of consulting engineers with Canadian accents, who were, curiously enough, only interested in gathering info on the haz sites along the southern tier mainline. They were trying to be coy about who they were looking for, but it was pretty obvious they'd been retained by CP.

Of interesting note, both the D&H and EL were in DERECO. So, had the EL stuck it out, then its likely that the EL would have been sold to Guilford. Then "Mellons Merry Men" would have tried to lease the EL to Springfield Terminal. If it had failed ala. the D&H, that would be when the EL would have declared bankruptcy. Hmm...Guilford Grey and "Golden Beaver" SD45-2's? Sounds nice.

Yes, this is true. I think CP is interseted in the EL.
Let us see what's final.

smithdwsn wrote:Yes, this is true. I think CP is interseted in the EL.
Let us see what's final.

Huh??????

smithdwsn wrote:Yes, this is true. I think CP is interseted in the EL.
Let us see what's final.

Yes, you have to be more clearer with your post or source your information.

The EL became part of Conrail in 1976 and the Estate was liquidated in the early 1990's, AFAIK.