So the ICC's vote to prevent 4 railroads from slimming down to 3 ended in the two weaker companies being absorbed into the two larger companies. So their vote eventually resulted in 2 railroads instead of 3. Genius!
@@NSHorseheadSD70 It is also your government being bought and paid for by lobbyist. In this case the UP paying for the whole thing using backdoor deals so they could stop the SP from falling into any other hands other than theirs. So sad they were allowed to get away with this.
@@NSHorseheadSD70 before you get too mad at the government there would probably be one or two class one railroads countrywide if they let the railroads do what they wanted throughout their history. Also I just wanna add government doesn’t have to be this corrupt. There are plenty examples of governments in Europe and sometimes in the US actually regulating companies competently. Monopolies are a problem and we seem to be forgetting that.
Something similar happened prior to the Penn Central merger. The ICC denied every merger proposal from both the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad, including one proposal that would see the New York Central merge with the Baltimore & Ohio. The ICC reasoning for the denials was again to avoid creating a monopoly. Yet they allowed Penn Central to be created which basically controlled the entire northeast. It cut off the railroads in New England and the former Anthracite railroads from the rest of the country, allowing PC to put them in a stranglehold if they saw it fit. Then they created Conrail to fix up their self created mess, which was itself a monopoly that was in full control wherever the Norfolk & Western or the Guilford System wasn't.
So the ICC's big, fat "NYET!" to the Southern Pacific - Santa Fe merger led to not three railways dominating the West, but only two, each having huge areas of monopoly service. ☹️
There's kind of a catch to this that any Californian will understand- Most of the state has not one but two major rail lines running through each corridor, often each town- one for the SP and one for the ATSF, this being a result of the SP's monopoly being broken in the 1870s. The SPSF merger would have resulted in a de facto monopoly in most places.
This is not why the government shouldn't regulate monopolies. This is why: 1) Mainline Railroads either need to be publicly owned, cooperatively owned or public trackage, with private operations. 2) It was a terrible idea to prioritize automobiles over trains. 3) WHY WE MUST TRUSTBUST MONOPOLIES. Of course you can't trustbust a company that can only survive as a monopoly.
lol and years later union pacific is now a monopoly which is hilarious the icc is full of dumbasses if they approved this merger we would have more than 2 companies but no they where stupid i bet they where paid off by union pacific to deny the merger
Kodachrome was nice and I remember the first one I saw... So clean and different from SF's blue/yellow war bonnet and basically grey with grimy white of SP. Yet still obviously stating the merger of the two.
The ICC really has never had the best interests of the RR business in sight. The failed UP/Rock Island Merger was another disastrous decision and the SP/SF was another. Supposedly this is why the push was made to abolish it a few years later, to be replaced by the Surface Transportation Board.
If the SPSF was created, the company would have gone bankrupt. The merger was completely useless as both railroads served the same area, meaning that nothing would have changed
I personally think the UP Rock Island merger was just something the UP wanted to use as a bludgeon against the CNW who was their main business partner at the time. It wasn't too long before that merger that the CNW lost UP's passenger trains to the Milwaukee Road due to their horrible track maintenance which led to poor schedule keeping. I wouldn't be surprised if the UP really just wanted to keep the CNW in line by dangling the prospect of them losing most of the traffic they got from the in Omaha with the prospect of the UP being able to go all the way to Chicago. Considering that the CNW, SP and other companies bought the remains of the Rock Island after it finally went under, I doubt the deferred maintenance was a big enough issue for the UP to turn them down considering the CNW and SP were in far worse shape than the UP and they bought and rebuilt portions of the Rock Island. The Rock Island merger was also a missed opportunity for the SP as well. Frankly, the SP was the Rock Island's largest partner and would have been a better fit for a merger than the UP. I know the SP would have gotten more mileage out of the UP deal than they ended up buying from the Rock Island's bankruptcy sale, but as a merger goes, the Rock Island needed through traffic and the SP needed access to the Midwest and the Eastern Railroads. As much as I like the SP, I do think Don Russel and Ben Biaggini were not cut out for the times they faced. Russel was good at internal stuff, but seemed to lack the ability to look outward for other opportunities and Biaggini fell into the same trap the Rock Island and Milwaukee Road which was that the "only a merger can save us" trap and never picking a good partner. At least the SP unlike the Milwaukee Road and Rock Island didn't see the UP as their only option at that point in time, even though the eventually fell into their orbit in the 90s.
@@mspetersen just comparing SF and SP pre-merger to what might have been after a merger. Can't say how things might have shaken out after that. I do think railroads are naturally monopolistic in the areas they serve. It doesn't make financial sense to have to build 2 sets of rails, maintain them both with two sets of locomotives and rolling stock to transport goods that can be carried over one set of rails.
As a big SP fan, I always see SPSF as a what if to UP's eventual domination of SP. I even got a couple of HO scale SPSF boxcars including the Rail-O-Gram one.
something i want to do is get an ho 6 axle locomotive like shown (i don't really know many diesels so i can't say which one) and custom paint it into the spsf scheme, because in my opinion it looks fantastic
@@Kuhneesseur I was also thinking of modeling some locos and rolling stock to the Kodachrome styled paint scheme for my fictional railroad on my digital Train simulator layouts. The diesels wouldn't look exactly like the Kodachrome, but would be similar in a sense where it could remind some people of the SPSF Kodachrome paint scheme. I think I'll do a test run when I do some reskinning of the game assets and see what I come up with.
The UP has dominated the SP multiple times, well back into the days of Harriman running the UP, hell under him the UP controlled the SP, much like the C&O controlled the B&O but didn't merge.
Should have mentioned how the ICC botched the splitting up of the Rock Island between the UP and the SP in the 1960s. Has that gone thru it would have been a totally different landscape and the Santa Fe would have probably found a different merger partner later.
The ICC also doomed Penn Central to an early demise by forcing it to take on the New Haven, who was in an even worse off hole the the Pennsy or the New York Central.
Growing up in Bakersfield I watched as the SP locomotives kept getting dirtier and dirtier, and the yard seemed to be running down compared to SantaFe located just a few miles to the west. Even as a young kid I could tell that SP was in hard times. Today I model the SP during the 80's thru 90's, just as a tribute to a great railroad that got the rug pulled out from under it. I have one Kodachrome SD45T as a reminder of SP's last days.
PhoolB, I also grew up in Bakersfield and loved watching the SP and the ATSF. I went to Bakersfield High and would watch the SF trains pulling out to go to either Fresno or Tehachapi. Those were great times. Bakersfield was a great train town during the 1980's. USPOKWF
yeah by UP fucked up on a lot of things when they took over SP by not listening to how operations along the Gulf of Mexico were to be done in Texas. In some ways the CNW should not have been allowed to be eaten up by Union Pacific either. CNW should have been offered up to Illinois Central or KCS.
@@onrr1726 As we know now, the KCS and I.C. no longer exists. It looks like Canadian National is going gobble up the KCS. Funny thing is that the Union Pacific had coveted the Southern Pacific for many years before merger with them, but from a distance and during the Burlington Northern, Santa Fe merger talks, Union Pacific had thrown it's hat in to buy the Santa Fe which got the interest of some of Santa Fe shareholders.
Truly amazing production values. This is the best railroad content I have seen so far on RUclips. Hats off to you, Peter. I wish your channel all the success you deserve! -Drayton
Wow your channel deserves more subs, very high quality and you clearly know your stuff. As someone from the U.K. 🇬🇧 who doesn’t know much about the US rail system this was very interesting and informative. Funny how the Government spent ages stopping the merger only to have 2 even bigger railways running the show a decade or so later.
How am I just now discovering this channel? Holy hell it was like watching a documentary on tv! The amount of work in this video was amazing! This is criminally underrated channel for sure with quality content like this.
This is one of the best rail documentaries I've seen on RUclips! The narration, music, pacing, visuals, and editing were all top notch. You've earned a sub!
I was an ATSF employee during the 'merger' years. I seem to recall that Schmidt was quite belligerent towards the ICC, something that did not come out in this otherwise fact based well done piece on the SPSF. Both railroads spent heavily on painting locomotives and installing interchange tracks based on their collective view that there was no way the merger would be turned down. After Schmidt resigned, there was an annual meeting of the corporation held in Chicago in 1987. I attended and in the row I sat in, there was an empty seat just two places to my right. The meeting was about to start and guess who sat in that seat - yep, you guessed it, John Schmidt. No one knew what he was going to do or say and thankfully, he was quiet and reserved throughout the meeting. The annual meeting proceeded and the final ICC decision was discussed and explained. At that point, the ATSF had ground to cover fast to continue to run and build business up to a good level. Thankfully it did recover and is now an integral part of the Big New Santa Fe.
I've watched this at least 10 times now, very well put together and fascinating topic! Please make more of these railroad documentarys they are awesome!
@@AmbianEagleheart that's also the fact after the I.C.C. said "No Bueno" to the merger. It was the derogatory term for the SPSF merger, considering how many locomotives both roads painted before the ICC said no
My grandpa actually worked for the MKT (Missouri-Kansas-Texas) railroad, he once told me a story before he sadly passed in 2014.. he said “Always wear a hard hat, I had a railroad beam fall on me and that’s what saved my life” remember to be safe out there railfans!
Fantastic, I literally knew nothing about trains or the railroads and loved this! Thank god we have guys like you because we can no longer count on the history channel for good content.
2873 was rescued from a scrapyard.......the real reason will never be known why it wasnt approved but it seems like a big pissing match amongst older people now probably dead
Me thinks the drawn out Southern Pacific Santa Fe merger by the Interstate Commerce Commission was the beginning of its downfall resulting in the creation the Surface Transportation Board.
I lived through those years of merger anxiety as I was working for one of Santa Fe's subsidiary industries. Thanks for the very good treatment of the matter.
I doubt that CN will get KCS as they all ready have a Canada to the Gulf Coast route. Besides, Warren has 145 billion in cash that just collecting interest. He might decide to let BNSF make a merger offer.
We can only hope that the ICC tells them both Canadian roads to go fuck off! It's a monopoly that could bring anti-trust law suits for years to come considering that both CN and CP already connect both Canadian coast lines together. With CN owning the Illinois Central with access to the the Gulf of Mexico already. Allowing CN or CP access into Mexico it's self could wipe out cross border competition with UP and BNSF considering that most of the Mexican Railroads are already partly or fully owned by KCS I think the Mexican government would or should have a say in who owns what in with in their borders as well.
I would be interested to hear more about why the ICC did not approve the merger. Puzzling when you see the mergers which followed: they seem like even bigger companies! Perhaps the level of concentration would have been just too high in the south west?
John Schmidt went on one of the morning news shows the date of the ICC hearing, and said that there may be some abandonments. This was something that they had promised against in the hearings. They lost at least one commissioner because of that interview.
@@historyboy08 It is fair to point out though, UP ended up with a 100% control of all Class One track in Utah at the end of all this with the final SP-UP merger; although that was alleviated by giving run through rights to BNSF through the state. So arguably that issue could have been combated with the SPSF by doing such to their competitors.
Oh no doubt they've been doing that from the beginning. ICC is messy, every step forward they took with these mergers, they took 3 steps back as well. They could've allowed BN to take the Milwaukee/Soo/CNW. Then SPSF most likely would've taken place. Plus UP could've gotten KCS/MKT/GWR, giving it direct access to Chicago.
who benefitted? UP and BN from this happening. So when the decision came out of nowhere, you gotta wonder how much money swung in order to feed the poor politicians
I remember the Cotton Belt in Arkansas. Cotton Belt's Pine Bluff Gravity Yard Cotton Belt Gravity Yard in Pine Bluff, Arkansas One of the most significant rail yard changes in the history of the Cotton Belt took place in 1957 when the building of a modern electronic gravity yard was begun in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a central location on the railroad. This large freight classification yard, opened on December 18, 1958, was built at a cost of $5.5 million. My uncle, Doyle S. Gibson, played an important role in building this important Cotton Belt facility. Modern features of the time included radios, intercoms, pneumatic tube systems among towers and other buildings, yardmaster's tower, and flood lighting for 24 hour a day operation. Push button controls guide cars through the system to the desired classification tracks via automatic power switches. Twenty-eight classifications tracks support a total of capacity of 1,300 rail cars, but the design included the ability to expand to forty classification tracks. The design also featured tracks to repair 70 freight cars, and a cleaning track to hold 56 cars. Electronic signs at each end of the yard light up the number of the track which each arriving train will pull. Tower at the crest of the Pine Bluff Gravity YardTower at the crest of the Pine Bluff Gravity Yard Trains are pulled out of the receiving tracks by "hump engines" past the hump tower, toward the Arkansas River Bridge, and then are shoved over the hump at 2 miles-per-hour. As cars descend by gravity down the grade on their way to various classification tracks, electronic equipment takes over. Computers feed information to retarders or braking devices on the tracks which apply necessary braking pressure to slow the cars down to a speed that will insure gentle coupling to other cars.
All of this could have been prevented had the UP tried to merge with the Milwaukee Road instead of the Rock Island It would have been a perfect end to end merger and would have created an equal truly competitive rival to the Burlington Northern
Fun fact: SP 7551 would be involved in the 1989(not exactly sure when) Cajon Pass derailment as it was the second unit and had no dynamic breaking. The train number was named 7551 East( since it was gonna be the lead unit but didn't start). I forgot what happened to it after the wreck but probably scrapped.
The rear most locomotive involved in the crash 7443 was also given the Kodachrome livery after the wreck, I forget when but it was sold to MRS logistica,a railroad in Brazil sometime in the early 2000s and is now the sole surviving piece of the disaster
Fantastic documentary! On a similar note, could you please cover the merger of Penn Central (known as one of the worst corporate mergers in history between the rivaling New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads) or Conrial (known as one of the greatest mergers which saved the northeastern freight railroads from collapse.)
Penn Central spent most of it's time pissing it's money into nonrailroad properties. Even after Conrail came about many of the same assholes that helped bring PC down were given top spots in Conrail. The mergers that had been proposed were. Reading / Lehigh Valley. Norfolk & Western was offered Erie- Lackawanna, and the D&H but dropped both in favor of the NKP and Wabash. Boston & Maine should have been given the New Haven
@@onrr1726 Erie Lackawanna was also Offered to the Chessie system but the Erie Lackawanna unions turned it down. Stanley Crane Ended up firing a lot of x Prr management. no one from the Prr went on to become CEO or other rail roads. 3 from the Nyc went on to become Ceo of other rail road 1 Al perlman Wprr John Kennewick Uprr Mike Flannery Mprr
Isn’t the rivalry between the PRR and NYC still playing out on the MTA Commuter Rail operations? Especially with differences of the third rail on MN and LIRR.
As bad as the merger was for them, SP was already in big trouble before the merger as they made bad investments in other ventures besides the railroad and their traditional traffic base had disappeared. The part of their system that had revenue potential, Texas, was also viewed as inferior to the California lines. I’d say SP was ultimately doomed beforehand but the merger sure didn’t help
All true, what I meant was the SPSF merger(specifically merging their holding companies, which in hindsight was really really stupid) was the _killing blow_ to SP... not necessarily actual cause of their financial trouble. A straw that broke the camel's back if you will.
@@stephenshaw8466 With the saying of the nail in the coffin was SP was already in trouble before the planned merger with ATSF when the ICC had turned down the merger when the final blow came when those expected hearings to last a whole day but within minutes the hearing was adjourned when CEO's had a hard choice after an entire fleet of locomotives painted for a merger that wouldn't exist when they also had to sell one or both railroads when ATSF had been on their own until around 1995 when the ICC approved the merger between BN and ATSF to form BNSF. Even today when the fight between CN and CP over the right to acquire KCS when of regulators that approved the CN/KCS merger already has the few wonder what is to happen with CP.
Excellent mini-doc! Great use of period footage and newspaper articles, unobtrusive incidental music and well spoken, well written narration. Very much helped this British fan of US railroading to better understand the topic. All the best and happy new year from this side of the pond.
Great video! Full of amazing information that was very helpful to me. I’m really interested in SP’s later life near the merge with UP, so this was super informative! Thank you very much.
Really great video! It's nice to see a video on the SPSF merger. Side note: You forgot the UP's buying of the C&NW. Don't know if you forgot that or made a decision to leave it out.
I remember back when I was traveling to several design conferences (IDSA) in the late 90s to Chicago and the East Coast via Amtrak, I saw so many (post-acquisition/merger) C&NW units - many with their nose heraldry pointing out their status as an "employee owned company". I reckon that part was soon painted over, not long after my sightings As someone born, raised & continuing to reside in the Puget Sound region and far more used to seeing Burlington Northern & Union Pacific liveries, I thought C&NW's was pretty sharp. If I'm not mistaken, I seem to recall that UP adopted the roofline "lighting stripe" on its units from the C&NW scheme - so it sort of lives on in spirit?
I wish things had played out differently for SP my dream is that they eventually bounced back and bought the UP so that ugly ass yellow paint would go away
Well, that's the nice thing about model railroads. You're free to rewrite history as you see fit and get an idea what it would look like. My road, the Davenport Peoria & Western, is meant to be a joint venture between the Rock Island and New York Central for bypassing congestion in Chicago. The Southern Pacific is also heavily invested in it. This lets me run NYC J class Hudsons, Rock Island locos, and SP style steam all on the same layout. Incidentally, in this alternate timeline, all the roads mentioned are still going strong. Amtrak exists, but instead of replacing intercity passenger service, it supplements it by being a sort of broker, a third party to facilitate shared and run through passenger service.
Great video I remember Cotton Belt Line and Southern Pacific trains running around my Great Grandparents house as a kid. Was sad as a child to see them go. Great video
As a life-long railfan and having grown up with both railroads in Beaumont, Texas, I recall the merger attempt well from my high school days. I think it's interesting to see the end results today, especially in regard to monopolized territories. I never was a fan of the Kodachrome scheme, for Espee/Cotton Belt's "bloody nose" and Santa Fe's "yellow bonnet" paint were personal favorites. It's interesting to see that some of that original paint is still out there to this day, albeit stenciled for either UP or BNSF. Nice documentary and some excellent old footage from the archives. Well done!
I really enjoyed your video. The information and photos was excellent along with your wonderful job of narrating. Lots of good information was provided for the general public along with many things that I never knew. Thanks again for putting this together.
I used to remember back in Roseburg, Oregon. Between 1986 to 1996. Seeing the old Kodachrome SP locomotives on Heavy Lumber and log trains. When I was just a very young kid
I was in California in 1986 working on the SP as a contractor. Kodachrome units all over the place. Interesting paint scheme that was better than SP's, but not Santa Fe's Warbonnet look.
Man, your videos are FANTASTIC. Keep up the good work bud! Greetings from the PNW! Can you looking into doing the demise of the Milwaukee Road as well? It was a huge player in this area.
One thing I found interesting when looking into this period of the SP was that the Kansas City Southern also bid with the Rio Grande to buy the SP from Santa Fe. The KCS was going to be the winner in that contest, but Anschutz put up $100 million more than the KCS and they were unwilling to beat the price. Its interesting to think how things would be different had the SP been absorbed into the KCS instead of the Rio Grande. I also wondered how things would have gone for the SP had they made a play at merging with the Rock Island in the 60s instead of the proposed UP/Rock Island merger of the same era. The Rock Island and SP would have been a better fit seeing as how they were already partners, the Rock Island needing the through traffic and the SP needing access to the Midwest and Eastern railways. I know they would have gotten mileage out of the UP deal, but that debacle to me seems like something the UP wanted to use a s bludgeon against the CNW who was living up to their name "Cheap and Nothing Wasted" at the time.
Thanks for this! I always wondered about what happened to the Kodachrome engines. I remember thinking, " What tha hell does SPSF stand for?" Then they were gone and no one knew what I was talking about!
I remember when an interchange switch was built at the junction in Los Nietos CA. It was removed from the SF line following the failed merger. I was surprised to revisit the area and find the SP (former PE--now UP) line with the switch and mechanism still there.
Don't forget the DRGW and the final destruction of the SP by Phil Anschutz. Heck they were pulling up the sidings and selling the steel for scrap under Anschutz before UP bought them.
Thank you for explaining what happend. My dad grew up in San Bernardino in the 80s and only so so few of those engines. Wish that it could have happend but sadly it did not. This really helped me and educated me more on railroad history.
I've been a fan of the SPSF merger for a long time. I have a decent amount of memorabilia from that era, including a small duffle bag and a memo announcing where the corporate offices would be after the railroads merged.
Santa Fe kept the non-railroad assets of Southern Pacific. Catellus was formed to manage that portion of the company. Southern Pacific also had a microwave communication system and that became Sprint.
![NLE Choppa - Or What ft. 41 (Orchestra Mix) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/biOFASEgSOM/mqdefault.jpg)
So the ICC's vote to prevent 4 railroads from slimming down to 3 ended in the two weaker companies being absorbed into the two larger companies. So their vote eventually resulted in 2 railroads instead of 3. Genius!
That's your government in action
@@NSHorseheadSD70 It is also your government being bought and paid for by lobbyist. In this case the UP paying for the whole thing using backdoor deals so they could stop the SP from falling into any other hands other than theirs. So sad they were allowed to get away with this.
@@NSHorseheadSD70 before you get too mad at the government there would probably be one or two class one railroads countrywide if they let the railroads do what they wanted throughout their history. Also I just wanna add government doesn’t have to be this corrupt. There are plenty examples of governments in Europe and sometimes in the US actually regulating companies competently. Monopolies are a problem and we seem to be forgetting that.
Something similar happened prior to the Penn Central merger. The ICC denied every merger proposal from both the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad, including one proposal that would see the New York Central merge with the Baltimore & Ohio. The ICC reasoning for the denials was again to avoid creating a monopoly. Yet they allowed Penn Central to be created which basically controlled the entire northeast. It cut off the railroads in New England and the former Anthracite railroads from the rest of the country, allowing PC to put them in a stranglehold if they saw it fit. Then they created Conrail to fix up their self created mess, which was itself a monopoly that was in full control wherever the Norfolk & Western or the Guilford System wasn't.
That's our beloved circus sideshow government, hard at work for us.
So the ICC's big, fat "NYET!" to the Southern Pacific - Santa Fe merger led to not three railways dominating the West, but only two, each having huge areas of monopoly service. ☹️
There's kind of a catch to this that any Californian will understand- Most of the state has not one but two major rail lines running through each corridor, often each town- one for the SP and one for the ATSF, this being a result of the SP's monopoly being broken in the 1870s. The SPSF merger would have resulted in a de facto monopoly in most places.
Who can screw your business
And do it with glee
Drive you to the point of bankruptcy
The government can
@@SamAronow And with the UP takeover...there are a lot of places that had 2 railways that have an effective monopoly now.
This is not why the government shouldn't regulate monopolies. This is why:
1) Mainline Railroads either need to be publicly owned, cooperatively owned or public trackage, with private operations.
2) It was a terrible idea to prioritize automobiles over trains.
3) WHY WE MUST TRUSTBUST MONOPOLIES.
Of course you can't trustbust a company that can only survive as a monopoly.
lol and years later union pacific is now a monopoly which is hilarious the icc is full of dumbasses if they approved this merger we would have more than 2 companies but no they where stupid i bet they where paid off by union pacific to deny the merger
The best part of SPSF was the Kodachrome paint scheme they debuted. I think it was sharp.
It's one of my favorite schemes in all of railroading
It looks like one of those spongebob popsicles.
@@braysfinds7479 LOL
I think I am the only person to cringe at the scheme. I love SP, I like the ATSF, but not together...
Kodachrome was nice and I remember the first one I saw... So clean and different from SF's blue/yellow war bonnet and basically grey with grimy white of SP. Yet still obviously stating the merger of the two.
The ICC had many odd decisions. That is why they're no longer with us.
All hail the STB!
@@jacquesblaque7728: Haha! Government never willingly gives up power. They just shuffled things around
Oddly enough, the BN & SF merged the day after I was born.
@@rockguitarist931 Well, they tried. But oopsie.
@@jacquesblaque7728 At least the UP didn't get either of those railroads.
The ICC really has never had the best interests of the RR business in sight. The failed UP/Rock Island Merger was another disastrous decision and the SP/SF was another. Supposedly this is why the push was made to abolish it a few years later, to be replaced by the Surface Transportation Board.
If the SPSF was created, the company would have gone bankrupt. The merger was completely useless as both railroads served the same area, meaning that nothing would have changed
I personally think the UP Rock Island merger was just something the UP wanted to use as a bludgeon against the CNW who was their main business partner at the time. It wasn't too long before that merger that the CNW lost UP's passenger trains to the Milwaukee Road due to their horrible track maintenance which led to poor schedule keeping. I wouldn't be surprised if the UP really just wanted to keep the CNW in line by dangling the prospect of them losing most of the traffic they got from the in Omaha with the prospect of the UP being able to go all the way to Chicago. Considering that the CNW, SP and other companies bought the remains of the Rock Island after it finally went under, I doubt the deferred maintenance was a big enough issue for the UP to turn them down considering the CNW and SP were in far worse shape than the UP and they bought and rebuilt portions of the Rock Island.
The Rock Island merger was also a missed opportunity for the SP as well. Frankly, the SP was the Rock Island's largest partner and would have been a better fit for a merger than the UP. I know the SP would have gotten more mileage out of the UP deal than they ended up buying from the Rock Island's bankruptcy sale, but as a merger goes, the Rock Island needed through traffic and the SP needed access to the Midwest and the Eastern Railroads. As much as I like the SP, I do think Don Russel and Ben Biaggini were not cut out for the times they faced. Russel was good at internal stuff, but seemed to lack the ability to look outward for other opportunities and Biaggini fell into the same trap the Rock Island and Milwaukee Road which was that the "only a merger can save us" trap and never picking a good partner. At least the SP unlike the Milwaukee Road and Rock Island didn't see the UP as their only option at that point in time, even though the eventually fell into their orbit in the 90s.
@@BuckeyeNationRailroader what would have changed was the lack of competition meaning lower expenses and higher fees.
@@jimwhelan9152 As opposed to today’s rail environment of 2 behemoths?
@@mspetersen just comparing SF and SP pre-merger to what might have been after a merger. Can't say how things might have shaken out after that.
I do think railroads are naturally monopolistic in the areas they serve. It doesn't make financial sense to have to build 2 sets of rails, maintain them both with two sets of locomotives and rolling stock to transport goods that can be carried over one set of rails.
Very well put together!
Even with the merger failure, still love the 80's look of the Kodachrome livery.
Agreed.
I miss Kodachrome film.
Shouldn't
Paint
So
Fast
a continuation of the *Warbonnet* paint scheme for SPSF
Looks like what Sammy Hagar wore back in the 80's!!!!😁😁😁😁
As a big SP fan, I always see SPSF as a what if to UP's eventual domination of SP. I even got a couple of HO scale SPSF boxcars including the Rail-O-Gram one.
something i want to do is get an ho 6 axle locomotive like shown (i don't really know many diesels so i can't say which one) and custom paint it into the spsf scheme, because in my opinion it looks fantastic
@@Kuhneesseur Likely an SD-40
@@Kuhneesseur I was also thinking of modeling some locos and rolling stock to the Kodachrome styled paint scheme for my fictional railroad on my digital Train simulator layouts. The diesels wouldn't look exactly like the Kodachrome, but would be similar in a sense where it could remind some people of the SPSF Kodachrome paint scheme. I think I'll do a test run when I do some reskinning of the game assets and see what I come up with.
The UP has dominated the SP multiple times, well back into the days of Harriman running the UP, hell under him the UP controlled the SP, much like the C&O controlled the B&O but didn't merge.
Espee for life
The Canadian Pacific Railway and the Kansas City Southern Railway have officially merged today, Friday, April 14, 2023. The new name is CPKC Railway.
CPKC Limited
Should have mentioned how the ICC botched the splitting up of the Rock Island between the UP and the SP in the 1960s. Has that gone thru it would have been a totally different landscape and the Santa Fe would have probably found a different merger partner later.
I plan to look for what happened to the pieces of the Rock after the Interstate Corporation Crusher split the Rock.
Maybe Hoover Vacuum Cleaners sucked up the fines.
The ICC also doomed Penn Central to an early demise by forcing it to take on the New Haven, who was in an even worse off hole the the Pennsy or the New York Central.
Growing up in Bakersfield I watched as the SP locomotives kept getting dirtier and dirtier, and the yard seemed to be running down compared to SantaFe located just a few miles to the west. Even as a young kid I could tell that SP was in hard times. Today I model the SP during the 80's thru 90's, just as a tribute to a great railroad that got the rug pulled out from under it. I have one Kodachrome SD45T as a reminder of SP's last days.
PhoolB, I also grew up in Bakersfield and loved watching the SP and the ATSF. I went to Bakersfield High and would watch the SF trains pulling out to go to either Fresno or Tehachapi. Those were great times. Bakersfield was a great train town during the 1980's. USPOKWF
You're a champ! I like to hear when people model after the railroads they grew up around.
Well, to their credit, Uncle Pete honored every railroad they merged with... so long as those railroads had "Pacific" in their name.
yeah by UP fucked up on a lot of things when they took over SP by not listening to how operations along the Gulf of Mexico were to be done in Texas. In some ways the CNW should not have been allowed to be eaten up by Union Pacific either. CNW should have been offered up to Illinois Central or KCS.
@@onrr1726 As we know now, the KCS and I.C. no longer exists. It looks like Canadian National is going gobble up the KCS. Funny thing is that the Union Pacific had coveted the Southern Pacific for many years before merger with them, but from a distance and during the Burlington Northern, Santa Fe merger talks, Union Pacific had thrown it's hat in to buy the Santa Fe which got the interest of some of Santa Fe shareholders.
@@rodcurry6387 Canadian Pacific is who bought and merged with KCS becoming the Canadian Pacific Kansas City railroad
@@stinkyroadhog1347 Thanks for the correction. I meant to say that the Candian Pacific is merging with the KCS.
Truly amazing production values. This is the best railroad content I have seen so far on RUclips. Hats off to you, Peter. I wish your channel all the success you deserve! -Drayton
Dang it, you ruined your name by adding the trademark logo, thus making it unsearchable on RUclips...
Coming from you Drayton, that is quite the complement. You my friend also have a fantastic production in Delay in Block.
This has to be one of THE best damn railroad documentaries to date! Well done!
Wow your channel deserves more subs, very high quality and you clearly know your stuff.
As someone from the U.K. 🇬🇧 who doesn’t know much about the US rail system this was very interesting and informative.
Funny how the Government spent ages stopping the merger only to have 2 even bigger railways running the show a decade or so later.
How am I just now discovering this channel? Holy hell it was like watching a documentary on tv! The amount of work in this video was amazing! This is criminally underrated channel for sure with quality content like this.
This is one of the best rail documentaries I've seen on RUclips! The narration, music, pacing, visuals, and editing were all top notch. You've earned a sub!
7551 was destroyed in a wreck in 1989, ironic that it was the first kodachrome ever painted.
It's kinda sad that it died as it lived, just like the SPSF; ran and mangled into the ground.
That crash made us SP made us heartbroken cuz of the gas pipe explosion and train crash.
The infamous Tepachi Runaway and Derailment.
I was an ATSF employee during the 'merger' years. I seem to recall that Schmidt was quite belligerent towards the ICC, something that did not come out in this otherwise fact based well done piece on the SPSF. Both railroads spent heavily on painting locomotives and installing interchange tracks based on their collective view that there was no way the merger would be turned down. After Schmidt resigned, there was an annual meeting of the corporation held in Chicago in 1987. I attended and in the row I sat in, there was an empty seat just two places to my right. The meeting was about to start and guess who sat in that seat - yep, you guessed it, John Schmidt. No one knew what he was going to do or say and thankfully, he was quiet and reserved throughout the meeting. The annual meeting proceeded and the final ICC decision was discussed and explained. At that point, the ATSF had ground to cover fast to continue to run and build business up to a good level. Thankfully it did recover and is now an integral part of the Big New Santa Fe.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
Ah my favourite railroad joke:
Shouldn’t
Paint
So
Fast
Yep
Lol now that's a good one
Came here for this xD
BNSF
Better
Not
Start
Family
@@krakenwoodfloorservicemcma5975 I would say everything except replace family with failing
The structure, organization and pacing of your production turned this esoteric subject into a completely engaging story. Looking forward to more!
I've watched this at least 10 times now, very well put together and fascinating topic! Please make more of these railroad documentarys they are awesome!
I cannot believe that I've only just heard of your channel, this is some of the best content that I have ever seen!
Top notch work on this video. Would have thought this was a bigger channel by how good the quality was.
"Southern Pacific & Santa Fe? Hah! more like Shouldnt Paint So Fast!"
-ICC
Sorry that nickname is so awesome Ive got to steal it.
Lmao another TRUE Railfan
Take my like and get out of here
Railfan and Railroad magazine just did a cover story on "Shouldn't Paint So Fast"
@@AmbianEagleheart that's also the fact after the I.C.C. said "No Bueno" to the merger. It was the derogatory term for the SPSF merger, considering how many locomotives both roads painted before the ICC said no
My grandpa actually worked for the MKT (Missouri-Kansas-Texas) railroad, he once told me a story before he sadly passed in 2014.. he said “Always wear a hard hat, I had a railroad beam fall on me and that’s what saved my life” remember to be safe out there railfans!
Fantastic, I literally knew nothing about trains or the railroads and loved this! Thank god we have guys like you because we can no longer count on the history channel for good content.
2873 was rescued from a scrapyard.......the real reason will never be known why it wasnt approved but it seems like a big pissing match amongst older people now probably dead
I really love high quality videos like this, they're so interesting please keep making these!
Hey, another train one! Did a great job summing up an important chapter in railroading history. Love seeing both the PDX and railroading content.
I'm going to be honest, I was searching up the SPSF on youtube a few weeks ago and couldn't find any good info on it. I'm so glad you uploaded this!
Excellent documentary btw. Music, editing, research etc. Well done.
Me thinks the drawn out Southern Pacific Santa Fe merger by the Interstate Commerce Commission was the beginning of its downfall resulting in the creation the Surface Transportation Board.
Between the Penn Central failure, the Staggers Act, and SPSF, the ICC was not long for the world
The ICC screwed over more railroads than I can count. This merger was yet another casualty of their over regulation. Thank goodness it was abolished!
I lived through those years of merger anxiety as I was working for one of Santa Fe's subsidiary industries. Thanks for the very good treatment of the matter.
Absolutely amazing video! Easily lives up to the high production standards of your previous work, and I cant wait to see more in the future
What a great documentary Mr. Dibble. Well thought out, smoothly animated with great direction, music choice and flawless narration. Great work indeed.
Would've been crazy if the CN-KCS/CP-KCS merger repeated the SPSF failure.
It very well could
I doubt that CN will get KCS as they all ready have a Canada to the Gulf Coast route. Besides, Warren has 145 billion in cash that just collecting interest. He might decide to let BNSF make a merger offer.
We can only hope that the ICC tells them both Canadian roads to go fuck off! It's a monopoly that could bring anti-trust law suits for years to come considering that both CN and CP already connect both Canadian coast lines together. With CN owning the Illinois Central with access to the the Gulf of Mexico already. Allowing CN or CP access into Mexico it's self could wipe out cross border competition with UP and BNSF considering that most of the Mexican Railroads are already partly or fully owned by KCS I think the Mexican government would or should have a say in who owns what in with in their borders as well.
@@onrr1726 CN and CP both so coast to coast but do not service much in the middle.
@@lucasaccount573 that maybe and they should not be allowed to service anything in the American heartland.
I would be interested to hear more about why the ICC did not approve the merger. Puzzling when you see the mergers which followed: they seem like even bigger companies! Perhaps the level of concentration would have been just too high in the south west?
it could have. It surely would have had a monopoly in Arizona and New Mexico.
John Schmidt went on one of the morning news shows the date of the ICC hearing, and said that there may be some abandonments. This was something that they had promised against in the hearings. They lost at least one commissioner because of that interview.
And probably NAFTA trade between the United States in Mexico being too close to the border running a monopoly through Arizona and New Mexico
Corruption is usually the answer.
@@historyboy08 It is fair to point out though, UP ended up with a 100% control of all Class One track in Utah at the end of all this with the final SP-UP merger; although that was alleviated by giving run through rights to BNSF through the state. So arguably that issue could have been combated with the SPSF by doing such to their competitors.
I loved this video! The video editing, the narration, and amazingly researched footage. Please keep posting more!
I suspect a BN lobbyist was whispering into key ears
Oh no doubt they've been doing that from the beginning. ICC is messy, every step forward they took with these mergers, they took 3 steps back as well. They could've allowed BN to take the Milwaukee/Soo/CNW. Then SPSF most likely would've taken place. Plus UP could've gotten KCS/MKT/GWR, giving it direct access to Chicago.
who benefitted? UP and BN from this happening. So when the decision came out of nowhere, you gotta wonder how much money swung in order to feed the poor politicians
Money talks BS WALKS
I was really hoping for a "Sidetrack" segment to go along with the "Detour" on the highway videos.
Haha! Clever!
I remember the Cotton Belt in Arkansas.
Cotton Belt's Pine Bluff Gravity Yard
Cotton Belt Gravity Yard in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
One of the most significant rail yard changes in the history of the Cotton Belt took place in 1957 when the building of a modern electronic gravity yard was begun in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a central location on the railroad. This large freight classification yard, opened on December 18, 1958, was built at a cost of $5.5 million. My uncle, Doyle S. Gibson, played an important role in building this important Cotton Belt facility.
Modern features of the time included radios, intercoms, pneumatic tube systems among towers and other buildings, yardmaster's tower, and flood lighting for 24 hour a day operation. Push button controls guide cars through the system to the desired classification tracks via automatic power switches.
Twenty-eight classifications tracks support a total of capacity of 1,300 rail cars, but the design included the ability to expand to forty classification tracks.
The design also featured tracks to repair 70 freight cars, and a cleaning track to hold 56 cars. Electronic signs at each end of the yard light up the number of the track which each arriving train will pull.
Tower at the crest of the Pine Bluff Gravity YardTower at the crest of the Pine Bluff Gravity Yard
Trains are pulled out of the receiving tracks by "hump engines" past the hump tower, toward the Arkansas River Bridge, and then are shoved over the hump at 2 miles-per-hour.
As cars descend by gravity down the grade on their way to various classification tracks, electronic equipment takes over. Computers feed information to retarders or braking devices on the tracks which apply necessary braking pressure to slow the cars down to a speed that will insure gentle coupling to other cars.
All of this could have been prevented had the UP tried to merge with the Milwaukee Road instead of the Rock Island
It would have been a perfect end to end merger and would have created an equal truly competitive rival to the Burlington Northern
SPSF: this is a huge merger
BNSF: wait till you see this power move
Fun fact: SP 7551 would be involved in the 1989(not exactly sure when) Cajon Pass derailment as it was the second unit and had no dynamic breaking. The train number was named 7551 East( since it was gonna be the lead unit but didn't start). I forgot what happened to it after the wreck but probably scrapped.
All locomotives but the rear 2 were scrapped
The rear most locomotive involved in the crash 7443 was also given the Kodachrome livery after the wreck, I forget when but it was sold to MRS logistica,a railroad in Brazil sometime in the early 2000s and is now the sole surviving piece of the disaster
I love this little documentary. It kept me interested the whole time and didn't get boring. Congratulations you got a new subscriber! :)
Fantastic documentary! On a similar note, could you please cover the merger of Penn Central (known as one of the worst corporate mergers in history between the rivaling New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads) or Conrial (known as one of the greatest mergers which saved the northeastern freight railroads from collapse.)
It was the Prr side that took down Penn central. The Prr had been lossing money since the End of WW2. Only N&W RR stock divends Save the Prr
Penn Central spent most of it's time pissing it's money into nonrailroad properties. Even after Conrail came about many of the same assholes that helped bring PC down were given top spots in Conrail.
The mergers that had been proposed were.
Reading / Lehigh Valley.
Norfolk & Western was offered Erie- Lackawanna, and the D&H but dropped both in favor of the NKP and Wabash.
Boston & Maine should have been given the New Haven
@@onrr1726 Erie Lackawanna was also Offered to the Chessie system but the Erie Lackawanna unions turned it down. Stanley Crane Ended up firing a lot of x Prr management. no one from the Prr went on to become CEO or other rail roads. 3 from the Nyc went on to become Ceo of other rail road 1 Al perlman Wprr John Kennewick Uprr Mike Flannery Mprr
great topic ideas!
Isn’t the rivalry between the PRR and NYC still playing out on the MTA Commuter Rail operations? Especially with differences of the third rail on MN and LIRR.
The CP KCS merger has been approved as of late March 2023
In my opinion the SPSF merger, more than anything else, was ultimately what killed SP.
As bad as the merger was for them, SP was already in big trouble before the merger as they made bad investments in other ventures besides the railroad and their traditional traffic base had disappeared. The part of their system that had revenue potential, Texas, was also viewed as inferior to the California lines. I’d say SP was ultimately doomed beforehand but the merger sure didn’t help
All true, what I meant was the SPSF merger(specifically merging their holding companies, which in hindsight was really really stupid) was the _killing blow_ to SP... not necessarily actual cause of their financial trouble.
A straw that broke the camel's back if you will.
And good riddance to the evil SP. It was a horrible railroad on every level.
@@stephenshaw8466 With the saying of the nail in the coffin was SP was already in trouble before the planned merger with ATSF when the ICC had turned down the merger when the final blow came when those expected hearings to last a whole day but within minutes the hearing was adjourned when CEO's had a hard choice after an entire fleet of locomotives painted for a merger that wouldn't exist when they also had to sell one or both railroads when ATSF had been on their own until around 1995 when the ICC approved the merger between BN and ATSF to form BNSF. Even today when the fight between CN and CP over the right to acquire KCS when of regulators that approved the CN/KCS merger already has the few wonder what is to happen with CP.
@@daniellibich1376 - Yourrunonsentencewithoutanypunctuationwasdifficulttoreadletalonecomprehend
Got a BNSF line right outside me door at work, and I never knew that part of Santa Fe's history. Great vid, you've got a new subscriber!
Excellent mini-doc! Great use of period footage and newspaper articles, unobtrusive incidental music and well spoken, well written narration. Very much helped this British fan of US railroading to better understand the topic. All the best and happy new year from this side of the pond.
Thank you! I'm glad it was informative.
@@peterdibble As a member of the US side. I concur with all points.
Great video! Full of amazing information that was very helpful to me. I’m really interested in SP’s later life near the merge with UP, so this was super informative! Thank you very much.
This channel is about to blow up. Amazing production quality👍
Really great video! It's nice to see a video on the SPSF merger.
Side note: You forgot the UP's buying of the C&NW. Don't know if you forgot that or made a decision to leave it out.
RIP CNW😓
I remember back when I was traveling to several design conferences (IDSA) in the late 90s to Chicago and the East Coast via Amtrak, I saw so many (post-acquisition/merger) C&NW units - many with their nose heraldry pointing out their status as an "employee owned company". I reckon that part was soon painted over, not long after my sightings As someone born, raised & continuing to reside in the Puget Sound region and far more used to seeing Burlington Northern & Union Pacific liveries, I thought C&NW's was pretty sharp.
If I'm not mistaken, I seem to recall that UP adopted the roofline "lighting stripe" on its units from the C&NW scheme - so it sort of lives on in spirit?
The SPSF merger attempt happened in the 80s. UP buying the North Western wouldn't happen until the 90s.
Love the video and how pieced together it is, just like the past two!
Excellent video! Very professional.
Thanks for sharing a very important piece of railroad history.
So sad you don't have a bunch of videos to binge, but so happy and excited to see what comes next
What a wonderful program… beautifully assembled and wonderfully narrated.
I wish things had played out differently for SP my dream is that they eventually bounced back and bought the UP so that ugly ass yellow paint would go away
Don't worry when one of us comes to power we will make that change because it's just better!
@@amberlantern9328 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Long live UP yellow!
@@TheMrPeteChannel Long Live the Warbonnet!
Well, that's the nice thing about model railroads. You're free to rewrite history as you see fit and get an idea what it would look like. My road, the Davenport Peoria & Western, is meant to be a joint venture between the Rock Island and New York Central for bypassing congestion in Chicago. The Southern Pacific is also heavily invested in it. This lets me run NYC J class Hudsons, Rock Island locos, and SP style steam all on the same layout. Incidentally, in this alternate timeline, all the roads mentioned are still going strong. Amtrak exists, but instead of replacing intercity passenger service, it supplements it by being a sort of broker, a third party to facilitate shared and run through passenger service.
Great video I remember Cotton Belt Line and Southern Pacific trains running around my Great Grandparents house as a kid. Was sad as a child to see them go. Great video
As a life-long railfan and having grown up with both railroads in Beaumont, Texas, I recall the merger attempt well from my high school days. I think it's interesting to see the end results today, especially in regard to monopolized territories.
I never was a fan of the Kodachrome scheme, for Espee/Cotton Belt's "bloody nose" and Santa Fe's "yellow bonnet" paint were personal favorites. It's interesting to see that some of that original paint is still out there to this day, albeit stenciled for either UP or BNSF.
Nice documentary and some excellent old footage from the archives. Well done!
Another fantastic video. This channel deserves more views.
I just found your channel last week, based on the Kartrak video. I also loved the Portland videos. Great work!
I literally found your channel the other day because I was looking for some technical information on Barcodes. Loving the great content, keep it up!
I really enjoyed your video. The information and photos was excellent along with your wonderful job of narrating. Lots of good information was provided for the general public along with many things that I never knew. Thanks again for putting this together.
Fantastic documentary. Outstanding video! Simply outstanding. Well done
Thank you! ☺️
Amazing content! This needs more views
Great railroad history information video very well done Peter. We hope you continue your railroad episodes.
This was really well done. Always been a fan of the paint scheme but I never knew the reason behind the failure.
9:40 the "Santa Fe" sign still exists and is at the Illinois Railway Museum.
Thank you SO MUCH for this fantastic video!!! You've done an excellent job. I'll definitely re-watch this several times in the coming months.
I used to remember back in Roseburg, Oregon. Between 1986 to 1996. Seeing the old Kodachrome SP locomotives on Heavy Lumber and log trains. When I was just a very young kid
Excellent video! Great information delivery and narration as well. I speak for all of us when I say that I'd love to see more of these
Atleast it gave Santa Fe enough time to revive its warbonnet scheme for new wide cab units.
Very interesting, enjoyed every second of this production.
Thanks for sharing mate!
Good story! Loved the video
I was in California in 1986 working on the SP as a contractor. Kodachrome units all over the place. Interesting paint scheme that was better than SP's, but not Santa Fe's Warbonnet look.
awesome video, thank you :)
Nicely done docco, Peter. Pleasantly professional approach, unlike some RUclips videos.
Such a gem of a video. Thank You!
Great job The best coverage I’ve seen. Congrats!
That was one of the finest looking Videos i have seen in a long Time!
Im onboard!
Man, your videos are FANTASTIC. Keep up the good work bud! Greetings from the PNW! Can you looking into doing the demise of the Milwaukee Road as well? It was a huge player in this area.
Loving your work Peter, I hope you plan to keep it up
One thing I found interesting when looking into this period of the SP was that the Kansas City Southern also bid with the Rio Grande to buy the SP from Santa Fe. The KCS was going to be the winner in that contest, but Anschutz put up $100 million more than the KCS and they were unwilling to beat the price. Its interesting to think how things would be different had the SP been absorbed into the KCS instead of the Rio Grande.
I also wondered how things would have gone for the SP had they made a play at merging with the Rock Island in the 60s instead of the proposed UP/Rock Island merger of the same era. The Rock Island and SP would have been a better fit seeing as how they were already partners, the Rock Island needing the through traffic and the SP needing access to the Midwest and Eastern railways. I know they would have gotten mileage out of the UP deal, but that debacle to me seems like something the UP wanted to use a s bludgeon against the CNW who was living up to their name "Cheap and Nothing Wasted" at the time.
Thanks for this! I always wondered about what happened to the Kodachrome engines. I remember thinking, " What tha hell does SPSF stand for?" Then they were gone and no one knew what I was talking about!
I remember when an interchange switch was built at the junction in Los Nietos CA. It was removed from the SF line following the failed merger. I was surprised to revisit the area and find the SP (former PE--now UP) line with the switch and mechanism still there.
Don't forget the DRGW and the final destruction of the SP by Phil Anschutz. Heck they were pulling up the sidings and selling the steel for scrap under Anschutz before UP bought them.
true
I have binged all your videos, keep it up with the great content!
Thank you for explaining what happend. My dad grew up in San Bernardino in the 80s and only so so few of those engines. Wish that it could have happend but sadly it did not. This really helped me and educated me more on railroad history.
Love that intro. The music, the images used. All amazing
Lovely piece of work. Great info & edit.
7551 was on of the 6 engines invold in a runway and was deamed a total loss along with 3 others
I've been a fan of the SPSF merger for a long time. I have a decent amount of memorabilia from that era, including a small duffle bag and a memo announcing where the corporate offices would be after the railroads merged.
Great video. Thank you. Please give us more.
Hey man, keep up the good work I love your highway videos, They’re great to just listen to while I’m doing homework or studying
Need more rail history like this. I would love to see you do one on PRR T1 class of locomotives.
Santa Fe kept the non-railroad assets of Southern Pacific. Catellus was formed to manage that portion of the company. Southern Pacific also had a microwave communication system and that became Sprint.
Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony
First of your videos I've seen. Great production value!
CPKC definitely took the "Shouldn't Paint So Fast" point and hasn't repainted anything 😂