Research Paper on:
Conrail Bought by CSX

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
used the American rail industry as an example of what not to do in 1960. The article, "Marketing Myopia," was published again in 1986. Even a generation later,  Levitts (1986) observations still held true. The message of that original article ultimately was that which spawned the "what business are we in"  question. Levitt (1986) explained that the railroads declined because they failed to understand the nature of their business. Much of that had changed by the time the Staggers  Rail Act was enacted in 1980 (Millett and Esty, 1998), but by that time the railroads already had suffered years of government regulation. Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) took full  advantage of being able to blame government regulation for its problems, though competitors had been able to produce much more favorable business results. The purpose here is to assess  the value of the merger of Conrail and CSX. Conditions at Conrail Though Conrail was not as profitable as its competitors, neither was  it in particularly bad shape at the time of the merger. The effect of deregulation was to allow railroads to eliminate unprofitable lines and to charge market prices for  their services. Across the industry, operating ratio "(defined as the ratio of operating expenses to operating revenues...)" (Millett and Esty, 1998; p. 2) fell from 93.3 percent in 1980  to 80.0 percent in 1995. This was attributable to the lower prices that railroads were able to charge after deregulation, allowing them to directly compete with the trucking industry  for the first time in literally decades (Millett and Esty, 1998). Railroads carried only 36 percent of the nations freight in 1985, but had gained 41 percent of it