I am doing some scanning and filing of my collection tonight. I was just looking at one company name, and thought perhaps someone here might have an explanation. The International-Great Northern Railroad was once known as the International & Great Northern RR. Apparently at some point there was a reorganization from ampersand to hyphen. When did that occur? I am guessing they had a financial issue at some point, prompting this change? I plan to keep both in one file, but curiosity is nagging at me to learn these answers.
While I have no answers - this link gives a sliver of information http://trainweb.org/web_lurker/IGN/
My Handbook of American Railroads (c. 1951) shows it with the hyphen and shows only that it came into MP control in 1924 when the New Orleans, Texas & Mexico purchased IGN control. I also notes that "The IGN was described in the mid-Twenties as the largest cotton carrier in the world." I looked up New Orleans, Texas & Mexico and found an excellent link at https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/international-great-northern-railroad which shows the name change became effective on August 17, 1922 as it emerged (as @BoxcabE50 estimated) from receivership.
