91��Ƶ

June 7, 2000 10:46 AM, EDT

A full year after CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railroad began to dismember and divide Conrail, both companies are still battered and bruised in recovering from a debacle that damaged their reputations, their customer relations and their bottom lines.

	Related Stories
	Court to Review BNSF-CN Appeal (April 28) CN's Tellier Confident Merger Will Go Through (April 20) Federal Policy on Railroad Mergers Due for Review (April 5) (Note: To return to this story, click the "Back" button on your browser.)

Spokesmen for the two railroads say service levels have been improved to meet goals set during the year. But some customers — like the members of the Chemical Manufacturers Association — are saying that the nightmare is not over.

Still others are trying to prevent a replay by blocking other proposed mergers.

“I still don’t know what went wrong,” said Ed Rastetter, director of policy at the National Industrial Transportation League, which represents shippers. “They seemed to be doing everything right — then the bottom dropped out.”

For the full story, see the June 5 print edition of Transport Topics. .