A Dream Coming True

The great empire builders who opened up the Plains states with the iron horse -- J. P. Morgan and James J. Hill among them -- dreamed of a single road that would stretch across the northwest from Chicago to the Pacific. Feared and hated for their enormous power, they were blocked by a series of famous Supreme Court decisions at the turn of the century and by crippling restrictions in the early '30s. Last week, at last, their dream seemed close to reality. Dismissing cries of monopoly, an examiner for the Interstate Commerce Commission recommended approval of a merger that would create the nation's longest railroad, much as the empire builders wanted it.

The merger would stitch together the 8,263-mile Great Northern Railway, the 6,682-mile Northern Pacific, the 8,546-mile Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and the 965-mile Spokane, Portland & Seattle. The result, including a few subsidiaries, would be a 26,564-mile system that would stretch from Chicago to Vancouver, B.C., and from Winnipeg to Galveston, rank third among U.S. railroads (after the Pennsylvania and Southern Pacific) in annual revenues, with its $775 million. The examiner, Robert H. Murphy, based his recommendation on the fact that the once powerful roads, though still making a profit, have suffered a "steady deterioration" in their financial condition. Reasons: a slower-than-normal population growth in the Great Plains and the decentralization of Eastern industry, which has drained them of many of the high-tariff finished goods that they formerly hauled west.

The full ICC must rule on the merger, and a decision will probably take about a year. The merger has been opposed by the Justice Department (though ICC decisions are immune from antitrust prosecution), by several states and by some stockholders, but the recent record shows that the ICC usually follows its examiners' recommendations. It has approved six other rail mergers in the last five years and rejected none, seems wisely determined to regroup competition-pressed U.S. roads into a hardier handful of regional superroads.

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