The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American railroad company that operated from 1968 until 1976. It was created by the merger on February 1, 1968, of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad was added to the merger at the insistence of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) on January 1, 1969. The headquarters of the merged railr...
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The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American railroad company that operated from 1968 until 1976. It was created by the merger on February 1, 1968, of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad was added to the merger at the insistence of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) on January 1, 1969. The headquarters of the merged railroad was in Philadelphia.
The Penn Central was created as a response to challenges faced by all three railroads in the late 1960s. The northeastern quarter of the United States, these railroads' service area, was the most densely populated region of the U.S. While railroads elsewhere in North America drew a high percentage of their revenues from the long-distance shipment of commodities such as paper and iron ore, Northeastern railroads traditionally depended on a much more heterogeneous mix of services, including:
These labor-intensive, short...
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