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October 18, 2000 9:20 AM, EDT

The Surface Transportation Board has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that toughens the rules for Class I railroads seeking to merge.

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The board said that its regulatory proposal represents a “major shift in basis from the pro-merger approach that has guided agency merger decisions for the last 20 years.”

The board noted that with only a handful of major railroads remaining, “any further merger proposals could trigger other applications that the board would have to consider.”

A Class I railroad has annual revenues of at least $250 million. At this point, the only Class I railroads in the United States are Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, CSX Transportation, Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Kansas City Southern.

For the full story, see the Oct. 16 print edition of Transport Topics. .