Conrail Breakup - Employees, Pensions, Unions etc.

[opus722]

This is something I've been wondering about as railfans often forget the human side of the industry. It's pretty easy to see who took possession of Conrail's locomotives, routes, and rolling stock during the breakup, but how did NS and CSX go about divvying up Conrail's personnel, retired pensions, union contracts, and so on? I want to assume that the pension funds were split up according to the percentages each company took ownership. How about Conrail's people? How did Conrail employees find out who their new boss would be? Finally, how did CSX and NS merge their bargaining agreements in with Conrail's? Any help given, primary or second-hand, is much appreciated.

 

[JohnnyC1]

Actuality Conrail is still around, although not as an entity as before. Do a search for Conrail and you will come up with many of your answers. Trains magazine did a feature article on the present day Conrail a couple of months ago. In short, Conrail as it exists today is owned jointly by CSX & NS and the company is ran as terminal operator. North Jersey, South Jersey/Philadelphia, and Detroit is where you will find Conrail operations under the banner of CSAO, Conrail Shared Assets Operations.

John