In addition to regulatory approval and shareholder approval, a merger of this type will need a lot of this. It's called shipper support. Previous mergers have left real negatives among shippers.
I posted this in a similar thread, Jan. 2015 issue of Trains Magazine had an article by Michael W. Blaszak "Is there still an urge to merge?" The article explains why CSX and CP are not going to merge.
This reminds me of when I was working for NS and was a trainee in Georgia. All we heard about was how the BNSF was buying NS. In fact I saw somewhere a joke about BNSF standing for Buying Norfolk Southern Fast. Then later when I was working on the DBU the big rumor was CSX was buying. I'm not sure if it was the system or the business unit. Now I din't know anything about what kind of layoffs are occuring on CSX and they don't appear to be in any kind of trouble but it's like I said back then, until it actually happens it's all just a bunch of rumors.
Bill
