Another RR/Transportation What-if

[Ris4history]

How do you "derail" the mega-merger movement in the American RR industry? I would like to replace it with a system of affiliations instead of the outright merge out of existance mania that has ocurred in the past 20-30 years. By affiliations I am describing a system in which many
Road cooperate with each other as if they are merged into on coperate
entity. My example would be the Chessie System of the 1970s and early
1980s. Three Roads in a common holding company acting as one large
system. The three RRs-C&O, B&O and WM never lost their corporate identity. They may have been wearing the same paint schemes but each
Road had seperate Reporting Marks. They shared common corporate functions like HR and bill processing and created common pools of equipment. But they were not a single monolithic company. At least this is my understanding. In the USA today we're pretty much CSX, NS, UP and BNSF with a few regionals and CP/CN around the edges. I just think a
more diversified rail network would be more interesting and maybe more responsive. Any thoughts?????