ConRail

The Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) was incorporated in Pennsylvania on February 10, 1976, for the purpose of taking over the viable portions of the Penn Central Transportation Company and other bankrupt Northeastern railroads as determined by the 1975 Final System Plan of the United States Railway Association. Conrail''s securities were owned by the federal government for funds advanced, and by its employees for wage and hours givebacks. Initial operation was as troubled and unprofitable as it had been for the old companies, but by the early 1980s, government-funded improvements, deregulation, and a competent and agressive management headed by Southern Railway Company veteran L. Stanley Crane, had turned the company around. On March 26, 1987, it was returned to the private sector at a profit through a public stock offering. Eventually it became the object of a bidding war between the other two large railroads operating east of the Mississippi, Norfolk Southern Corporation and CSX Corporation. To end the stalemate, Conrails lines were divided between them on July 23, 1998, with Conrail itself remaining as a joint subsidiary operating trackage around Newark, N.J., Philadelphia and Detroit