As Conrail was taking shape, I believe that option was looked at and the reason the trackage rights rout was taken was due to costs. If they were to take over lets say the old LV between Buffalo and Sayre, new agreements with labor would have to be negotiated, along with being responsible for track maintenance and taxes and purchase from whichever bankrupts estate. Running via trackage rights none of that was a issue, just whatever fee CR and D&H agreed upon. Remember, D&H wasn't in great financial shape either in the mid 70's, but at least they were solvent.
On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 6:31 PM <mmatt378@...> wrote:
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I often wonder that instead of trackage rights if they had received ownership to Buffalo, Allentown, Oak Island, and maybe even Harrisburg, and they didn't need to rely on Conrail traffic control if they would have had better odds.? But then again, I guess once you figure in track and ROW maintenance etc., maybe it wouldn't have helped.? Obviously Conrail was set up not to fail, so to add any type of real competition for it would have been counterproductive.? D&H probably would still have ended up under NS ownership by now anyway. ?- Mark
