I did a little research and was surprised to see how well balanced the four U.S. majors are in route mileage. I'd thought that UP was larger than BNSF in terms of route miles, but it's not so. I'd also guessed that CSX was larger than NS, but that too isn't so. CP is indeed a lightweight in comparison to the others. If these numbers are right, the six majors operate 83% of North American route miles. UP = 32,000 Miles BNSF = 32,500 Miles CSX = 20,000 Miles NS = 22,000 CN = 20,000 CP = 12,500
KCS operates 3,500 route miles in the U.S. and indirectly controls another 3,100 route miles in Mexico via KCS de Mexico S.A. de C.V..
Long term, I wonder just how good these are for Joe Average? Great for investors and stockholders. But,..... Every time all we get are fewer rail miles; fewer jobs; fewer tax paying entities; a loss of shippers, even after the trucking industry picks up some of them; some businesses folding up or struggling simply to survive, even going to great expense trying to relocate, and so forth.....
KCS has no doubt denied many suitors over the past several decades under Mike Haverty's excellent leadership and continued to do well. He retired from KCS about five years ago and it seems the new management has decided upon a different course. I'm often dubious about merger promises in all kinds of businesses because plans go awry, astonishing levels of new debt have to be dealt with and/or shareholders get hosed with diluted ownership when new shares are floated. I respect the way that the C&O took control of the B&O in 1963. Rather than immediately turn the B&O upside down, they began by operating both properties separately and progressed though system changes on a sensible schedule that increased efficiencies and didn't ruin service.
A kind of plan that was followed when Chessie and Seaboard started forming CSX Transportation over 5 years after the creation of CSX Corporation.
Interesting detail there. CN's annual shareholder meeting will take place on Tuesday, 04/27 at 10 AM Eastern and it'll be live on line. I'll bet KCS will dominate much of the dialogue. https://www.cn.ca/en/investors/events/annual-meeting/
The longer this goes on the more I think KCS is playing this to get the STB to bust the merger and make it all go away. I'm sure that wishful thinking on my part . . . .