Pennsylvania and Western? An alternate railroad merger concept

qhat would have happened if the New York Central and the Pennsylvania railroad never merged in 1968 leading to the disaster of Penn Central? In my opinion, it would have made more sense for those two to merge. My reasons why are

, friendly management (PRR owned a ton of NW stock),
non parallel lines,
NW would get direct access into Pittsburgh before the PWV being absorbed in 1964,
Norfolk and western would have access into New York City as well.

The Penn Central merger was doomed from the start, so what would have happened if two allies had merged their assets to compete against New York Central?
 
Pennsy plus N&W, and New York Central merging with the Baltimore & Ohio-Chesapeake & Ohio combine. That's what the NYC originally wanted anyway.

What happens to the Northeast's also-rans (Erie Lackawanna, Reading, Delaware & Hudson, Boston & Maine, New Haven, etc.)? That's an open question. Do they get divvied up between NYC/B&O/C&O and PRR/N&W, or does some outside power step in (the Santa Fe was apparently taking a long look at the EL at one point, which creates the intriguing prospect of a scramble to create true transcontinental railroads)?
 
May I suggest "Penn Norfolk" as a name for the merged system? I don't have a good suggestion for the NYC/C&O/B&O system.
 
IIRC, the Boston and Maine was already under the PRR umbrella to some extent. Using the Hell Gate Bridge, the PRR had a direct link to the New Haven. Put those together and you have the PRR controlling the northeast corridor from Boston to Washington (and it might well have meant an earlier extension of catenary from New Haven to Boston). The B & O and Reading might well have been absorbed by the NYC with some alternative (no idea how) entry to Manhattan, since otherwise passengers had to disembark and board buses to get across the Hudson: perhaps if the NYC had the funds, another tunnel? That combination could accommodate the Erie Lackawanna and D & H.
 
I don't have a good suggestion for the NYC/C&O/B&O system.
My understanding is that a decent part of B&Os opposition to it was that the thing was being approached a simple acquisition. New York, Baltimore and Ohio has a decent ring to it, but ignores the C&O side of things and IMO doesn't have enough of a NYC ring for anyone to go with it. NB&O MIGHT work if it was otherwise entirely NYC I guess, but really I think the most likely outcome is that it all gets absorbed into NYC.

As fare as getting B&O proper access to New York, I rather think that ship sailed when they weren't part of either the Hudson Tubes or the new Grand Central. I can think of a few ways it might have happened with either the tubes being mainlines, and/or a third major terminal being built in Lower Manhattan, but post war I really can't imagine anything realistically happening beyond an outside possibility a properly merged NYC/B&O might somehow be dragged into helping bail out Hudson and Manhattan/PATH in the 50s or 60s, extending it to Jersey City and Grand Central. That said, I think this would have to be some kind of public/private venture of the sort not at all in vogue for the era to have a chance, just buying H&M as a straight bail out seems POSSIBLE, but not PLAUSIBLE unless NYC gets a strange interest in the Lower Manhattan real estate and tries to do something along the lines of the World Trade Center on their own and a decade early.
 
This also would be interesting to see if Conrail is still formed, or a similar concept. Since the railroads merged with partners that strengthened their systems, the federal government wouldn't need to step in and create an emergency company to save freight railroad in America. Now, would Amtrak still exist?
 
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