PBS
•74% Informative
Canadian Pacific's $31 billion acquisition of Kansas City Southern will combine the two smallest of the nations seven major railroads.
The bar for railroad mergers in the U.S. was raised substantially at the start of the century after a disastrous combination of Union Pacific and Southern Pacific in 1996.
Railroads and safety have become a national political fight this year following a fiery derailment in Ohio last month.
The only recent deal involving one of the major railroads is the 2010 purchase by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway of BNSF, but that deal faced less scrutiny because it wasn’t a merger of two rivals. A couple years before the Kansas City Southern deal, Canadian Pacific had attempted unsuccessfully to buy both Norfolk Southern and CSX. Shares of Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. jumped 5 percent Wednesday. Support Provided By: Learn more Nation Feb 21.
VR Score
80
Informative language
81
Neutral language
72
Article tone
formal
Language
English
Language complexity
65
Offensive language
not offensive
Hate speech
not hateful
Attention-grabbing headline
not detected
Known propaganda techniques
not detected
Time-value
short-lived
External references
no external sources
Source diversity
no sources
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