Every shipper knows that the U.S. railroad industry has been on a merger spree in recent years.
The number of Class I railroads has been decreasing. It started in the West and then, with the Conrail breakup, continued in the East. Every shipper also knows that there has been a distinction between the advance rhetoric surrounding a merger announcement and the reality of the merger. The Board noted that the U.S. railroad industry has consolidated aggressively in recent years, with only six large railroads remaining in the U.S. and Canada. The Board stated that it needed to revisit its merger rules in light of the current environment and the prospect of a North American transportation system composed of as few as two transcontinental railroads.