Rail freight stakeholders can mark up their merger calendars.
Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern plan to file their formal merger application with federal regulators on Dec. 19.
The date for the filing covering the creation of the first freight-only transcontinental railroad was contained in a document advising of a delayed filing submitted to the Surface Transportation Board Dec. 5, and has not been previously reported.
According to a timeline posted on the STB website, the filing of what Union Pacific has said will be a 4,000-page document triggers a statutory 30-day review by the STB for completeness after which the regulator can accept a complete application, or reject it as incomplete.
This phase is separate and involves no evaluation of the merger itself.
While the 2023 merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern ran to 10,000 pages, the marriage of UP (NYSE: UNP) and NS (NYSE: NSC) is likely to generate more documentation and data for review than for any previous merger. The consolidation will be the first test of more stringent criteria adopted by the STB after a whirlwind of railroad consolidation in the Nineties.
This article was updated Dec. 11 to delete a sentence that misattributed a Dec. 16 filing date to UP CEO Jim Vena.
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Find more articles by Stuart Chirls here.
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