CONRAIL, or the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was formed in
1976 by the federally-directed merger of the
Central Railroad of New Jersey[?], the
Erie Lackawanna Railroad[?], the
Lehigh & Hudson River Railway[?], the
Lehigh Valley Railroad[?], the
Penn Central Railroad, and the
Reading Railroad[?]. All six had gone bankrupt in the early part of the decade. CONRAIL would finally turn a profit in
1981, and the
United States government sold its interest in the company six years later in the largest
IPO in the U.S. to date.
CONRAIL was bought by and its assets were divided between CSX Corporation[?] and Norfolk Southern Corporation[?] in 1997, but in the "shared asset areas" of Detroit, Michigan, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, where assets were not easily dividable, still exists as agent and local operator.
Headquarters are located in Philadelphia.