Prototype News

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern would try to sell some of their ownership stakes in the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, Kansas City Terminal Railway and TTX Company if their merger is approved, according to new filings with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.

In May, the federal regulator tentatively accepted UP’s application to acquire NS, but requested additional information about a number of topics. On July 7, UP and NS filed the first portion of that request with information about how they would handle companies that they jointly own with other Class Is. The primary railroads in question include TRRA in St. Louis, which they jointly own with BNSF Railway, CSX and Canadian National, and KCT, which is owned with BNSF and CPKC.

In the revised filing, UP and NS officials accused the other Class Is of using the terminal railroads as pawns in their effort to delay the proposed merger, one that would create a 50,000-mile rail system across 43 states. For example, UP called a meeting of the TRRA board to discuss how the joint ownership of the railroad would be handled following a UP-NS merger. But none of the other Class Is showed up to the meeting. UP owns 42.84 percent of TRRA, and NS, BNSF, CSX and CN each own 14.29 percent of the railroad. One solution proposed by UP-NS is to split up NS’s shares among the other railroads so UP would not own more than 50 percent of TRRA. Another suggestion calls for handing over NS’s shares to a new railroad altogether. Similar solutions were suggested for KCT and TTX. TTX, the freight car provider and manager, is jointly owned by the six American Class Is plus Ferromex.

UP and NS said they intend to provide more information about their merger to the STB before a July 27 deadline.

—Justin Franz 

The post Combined UP, NS Looks to Divest From Terminal Railroads appeared first on Railfan & Railroad Magazine.

Norwood & St. Lawrence 2-6-0 210 has been acquired by the St. Lawrence Power & Equipment Museum in Madrid, N.Y. The engine was previously part of the Steamtown National Historic Site collection but was recently deemed surplus, allowing it to return home to upstate New York.

Built by the American Locomotive Company in 1923, locomotive 210 pulled freight and mixed trains on the Norwood & St. Lawrence Railroad, a subsidiary of the St. Regis Paper Co. The engine was sold to a Watertown, N.Y., scrap yard in 1957, before being purchased by F. Nelson Blount in 1965 for his Steamtown collection in Vermont. Eventually, 210 and the rest of the Steamtown collection moved south to Scranton, Pa., in the late 1980s, becoming the property of the National Park Service. The engine has been stored in the Steamtown yard for years, mostly out of sight.

The locomotive will be cosmetically restored and displayed at the St. Lawrence Power & Equipment Museum. Since 2006, the museum has helped tell the story of the people and industry of New York’s North Country.

—Justin Franz 

The post Steamtown 2-6-0 Acquired by New York Museum appeared first on Railfan & Railroad Magazine.