The Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) was formed on April 1, 1976 not by a standard merger, but as a new government corporation that took over only designated lines and other rail-related assets from the existing bankrupt companies. Seven major companies were included:
So were most railroads that had been leased or controlled by them, sometimes jointly.
Conrail maintained existing leases of the small Amsterdam, Chuctanunda and Northern Railroad (PC-NYC) and Central Railroad of Indianapolis (PC-NYC), as well as the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad (LV), owned by the non-railroad Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. In addition, Conrail acquired long-term leases on several Canadian properties (all PC-NYC): the St. Lawrence and Adirondack Railway, the Canada Southern Railway, and its subsidiaries Detroit River Tunnel Company and Niagara River Bridge Company. All of these Canadian companies but the St. Lawrence and Adirondack were given up in 1985. None of the property of the New York and Harlem Railroad was transferred to Conrail, but a portion was operated under contract as a light-density line.
<imagemap> Image:Railroadtree.svg|thumb|center|700px|A family tree, so to speak, of Conrail, CSX Transportation, and Norfolk Southern Railway. Only major railroads are shown. Links are clickable. rect 63 654 169 694 CSX Transportation rect 457 657 566 693 Conrail Shared Assets Operations rect 783 655 895 691 Norfolk Southern Railway rect 806 551 871 590 Southern Railway rect 482 551 533 567 Conrail rect 369 465 463 501 Lehigh Valley Railroad rect 565 460 676 494 Erie Lackawanna Railway rect 61 435 160 470 Seaboard Coast Line rect 736 400 823 419 Erie Railroad rect 363 379 463 414 Central Railroad of New Jersey rect 562 315 668 366 Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad rect 786 298 894 336 Norfolk & Western Railway rect 379 293 439 328 Reading Railroad rect 58 302 160 340 Seaboard Airline Railroad rect 272 220 329 261 Chessie System rect 592 214 669 257 Penn Central Transportation Company rect 774 198 882 217 Wabash Railroad rect 41 162 150 198 Louisville & Nashville Railroad rect 346 131 439 165 Western Maryland Railway rect 513 102 556 150 New York Central rect 669 101 725 148 Pennsylvania Railroad rect 772 106 886 155 Nickel Plate Railroad rect 798 29 860 67 Virginian Railway rect 600 18 651 74 New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad rect 436 31 534 64 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad rect 270 31 366 66 Chesapeake & Ohio Railway rect 113 31 205 69 Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
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