Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Non-railroad subsidiary companies.

In the course of its development, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company absorbed or created a large number of ancillary non-railroad enterprises.

Prior to the 1920s these enterprises were primarily adjuncts to the company's railroad operations. Ferry and steamboat companies were simple extensions of the company's railroad lines. Real estate companies held surplus land along the railroad for the purpose of encouraging commercial and industrial development. Other companies owned coal lands which provided sources of traffic. The Susquehanna Coal Company, which owned anthracite mines around Nanticoke, Pa., was operated directly by the PRR until 1913, when it was sold to avoid antitrust prosecution. The PRR also owned several bitumimnous coal properties, which were leased to independent operators. Starting in 1902, the PRR created a number of water companies along its lines to ensure adequate supplies for its steam locomotives.

As the railroads lost their near-monopoly position after World War I, the PRR under President W.W. Atterbury began to diversify with the object of creating an integrated, intermodal transportation company. Most of the companies thus acquired were controlled through a holding company, the American Contract & Trust Company. In 1928, the PRR began investing in bus companies to replace or supplement its less profitable passenger trains. In January 1931 most of these operations were consolidated into Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., a joint operation of the PRR and the Greyhound Corporation. This arrangement gave the PRR over 8,000 route-miles of bus lines, which it operated until 1954, when Greyhound became sole owner.

The PRR began acquiring trucking companies to improve the handling of less-than-carload freight in 1926, when it purchased a quarter interest in Scott Brothers, Inc., which had a large local trucking business in the Philadelphia-Trenton area. The PRR acquired the Pennsylvania Transfer Company of Pittsburgh in 1928 and a one-third interest in the Willett Company of Chicago in 1930, as well as partial interests in other companies at Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland and Norfolk. A number of these companies were eventually merged into Pennsylvania Truck Lines, Inc., which passed down to Penn Central and Conrail before becoming independent in the late 1980s.

The PRR's interest in trucking was also spurred by its experiments in intermodal containerization in the 1920s and 30s and with the development of pick-up and delivery services to replace local freight trains. By 1945 the PRR had nearly 9,000 miles of P & D routes.

The PRR also invested in ocean shipping and in Transcontinental Air Transport, Inc., a predecessor of Trans World Airlines, which operated combined rail-air service between New York and Los Angeles between 1929 and 1932.

In the 1950s and 60s, the PRR began another diversification program, investing in pipelines, recreation and Sun Belt real estate.

From the description of Corporate records, 1808-1960. (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122405786