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The story
The Seaboard System Railroad's roots trace back to SCL Industries, a holding company created in 1968 that combined the Seaboard Coast Line's subsidiary railroads into one entity. In 1969, SCL was renamed Seaboard Coast Line Industries, which was known as the Family Lines System from 1972 to 1982, to better compete with the Southern Railway System. This entity adopted its own logo and colors, but each railroad maintained its own identity. Over time, this caused confusion among customers. In comparison to the neighboring Chessie System, which had four railroads, the Family Lines had six railroads. In 1971 SCL bought out the remaining shares and made the Louisville & Nashville a subsidiary.
On November 1, 1980, Seaboard Coast Line Industries and Chessie System merged under the holding company CSX Corporation. Over the following seven years, the Chessie and Seaboard's various railroads were gradually merged into one.
On December 29, 1982, the Seaboard Coast Line and Louisville & Nashville (under the Family Lines entity) were merged to form the Seaboard System Railroad, Inc.
Considered as a "temporary railroad", the Seaboard System quickly began to merge the smaller railroads that were owned under the Family Lines System entity. This included the Georgia Railroad and the Clinchfield Railroad (1983), South Carolina Pacific Railway (April 30, 1984), Louisville, Henderson & St. Louis Railway (July 1984), Gainesville Midland (1985), Atlanta & West Point Railroad (June 1986) and the Columbia, Newberry & Laurens (June 1986). These mergers simplified equipment and management alongside the Chessie System railroads (Chesapeake & Ohio, Baltimore & Ohio, Western Maryland).
The Seaboard System renamed itself CSX Transportation on July 1, 1986. On April 30, 1987, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was merged into the Chesapeake & Ohio. Finally, on August 31, 1987, the Chesapeake & Ohio (still under the Chessie System entity for corporate reasons) was merged into CSX Transportation. All the major railroads under CSX Corporation were now one company.
The Western Railway of Alabama would remain an operating subsidiary until December 2002, when it was finally merged into CSX.
From Wikipedia’s article on Seaboard System Railroad, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3