viewer Wrote:
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> This Southern Pacific TV ad from the early 1980s
> makes me cringe. It foretells what happened to
> the company. The ad lists SP's very diverse
> portfolio of industries. The ad was probably
> intended just as a simple public relations piece.
> But in retrospect, it seems like an ad to attract
> a buyer (or corporate raider) like Anschutz.
>
> Ad says: "...we are a gold mine." Cringe. Oh my
> yes. To Anschutz, it was.

What you're failing to realize is that by the time Anschutz purchased the carcass that was Southern Pacific, all those diversified assets weren't included. All Anschutz got, was a railroad.

Most railfans think Santa Fe and Southern Pacific didn't merge. That's wrong. They did merge. It's just that the combined company (Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corporation - notice the railroad names are reversed) wasn't allowed to keep both railroads. So they sold off the Southern Pacific Railroad - but all the other assets were kept by SFSP (later renamed to Santa Fe Pacific).

Anschutz surely made a profit - but don't blame him. Santa Fe stripped Southern Pacific of so much, and SP was in very bad shape by the late 1980s. Running ragged old locomotives, not keeping up on track maintenance, single-tracking formerly double-tracked mains...they were squeezing anything they could.