The Undead Wabash?

While doing research on the Wabash (one of my favorite railroads), I found something rather interesting in the 1994 "Moody's Transportation Manual." Go to page 73 and you'll find details of the Wabash's 1991 "merger" into the N&W. (Remember, Norfolk Southern Corporation is a distinct entity from the Norfolk Southern Railway. NSC controlled 100% of the N&W from day one, but it wasn't until 1991 that the Southern Railway was fully acquired by NSC. As a result, the Southern was renamed "Norfolk Southern Railway") According to "Moody's," the N&W paid $75 in cash plus $3.90 for each share of Wabash preferred stock and $649.97 in cash for each share of Wabash common stock. As a result of the transaction, the Wabash became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Norfolk & Western Railway.

A wholly owned subsidiary is not the same as a merger, and so it would seem as though the Wabash continued to exist up until the N&W Railway was merged into the NS Railway in 1997. But the N&W was the railroad merged into the NS/SOU, so that would mean that the Wabash would then become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Railway. From what I read on the lease agreement, the Wabash retained ownership of the track, but the equipment, crews, police, employees and day-to-day operations were taken over by the N&W (and later NS). Gotta' love "paper-railroads." They make sure that some of our favorite fallen flags continue to exist, albeit without many of the elements that made us love them.

Speaking of the Wabash, if Norfolk Southern decides to do a heritage program...



Original Thread:
http://ogaugerr.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a ... 2811025364

By the way, this rendering was not done by me, and as a result, I have posted a link to the original thread below the image.

I owned Wabash preferred stock right up until NS bought us out. They were nice about it and sent me back the canceled stock certificate. The original Wheeling & Lake Erie lasted until the 1990's as well. The Pittsburgh & West Virginia is still traded on the American Stock Exchange.

I own a lot of other paper railroads but only a fraction of what I had 20 years ago. Slowly but surely the parent companies are buying out these things - I'm sure between the guaranteed dividends and the cost of maintaining their corporate existence they are certainly a pain to keep going.

No particular comments, but it's a very interesting piece of information!

As for the paint scheme, I don't like the yellow. It looks weird.

The thing I admire about the UP heritage units - they take the spirit of the corporate identity of the predecessor railroads and make it work on a modern locomotive. It's really hard to get a streamliner paint scheme designed for an E7 to work on a SD70, unless of course you're talking yellow dip (like UP). If UP were to take the MoPac Raymond Loewy look it would be tough to adapt to an SD70, same with MKT's Texas Special look or WP's Cali Zephyr look.