PC: Penn Central Transportation Company

[Walter B Turner <lnrr@xxxxxxxx>]

Was Penn Central Transportation Company the railroad, or just the company
that "owned" the railroad?

Most larger railroads are actually controlled by another company, since
there are many prohibitions on what at railroad can do. For example, a
railroad cannot own a coal mine because of the fear that the railroad
would give better service and/or rates to its own mine; however, there is
no prohibition against a company that owns a railroad owning a coal mine.

When visiting a web page for some of the big railroads (www.csx.com and
www.up.com, for example) you first arrive at the main corporation's page;
to visit the railroad itself you select a link on the main page.

It is interesting to look at the organization of some of the modern
mega-merger roads. Sometimes old companies still exist under layers and
layers of other companies. What is really interesting is to look and see
which companies were dissolved and which companies still exist on paper;
this is a very interesting exercise for NS watchers. Many old reporting
marks still exist for reasons other than the expense of repainting
equipment.

Bryan Turner