Penn Central

The Penn Central was a railway in the United States formed in 1968 from a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central. At the time the two railroads were among the largest and most prosperous in the U.S. and the merger was seen as a logical next step toward growing both companies. However, the new Penn Central declared bankruptcy in 1970. The case of the Penn Central railroad is often cited in business courses as a case study in hasty and poorly thought out business decisions. The bankrupt Penn Central was then absorbed, along with several other bankrupt eastern railroads, into the U.S. government owned Conrail which kept the trains running on these lines until 1999. The assets of Conrail were finally privatized in 1999 and divided between the two remaining U.S. East Coast Class I railways, CSX and Norfolk Southern.