St. Lawrence & Hudson

Company History: Taken word-for-word from Wikipedia.org, they define the StL&H like this:

The StL&H arose out of a corporate reorganization at CPR that was announced on November 21, 1995. CPR wished to spin off its “eastern operating unit” into an operating railway company as a means to control poor financial performance of its assets in eastern North America.

“ A new management group responsible for the company’s operations in the east, including the Delaware & Hudson Railway, will be headquartered in Montreal. The eastern unit will be responsible for turning the railway’s operations between Montreal to Chicago and the U.S. Northeast into the most efficient, low-cost provider of railway services in the region. The new eastern unit will allow the railway to aggressively address the persistent losses it has sustained on its operations in the region. Its creation follows earlier efforts to merge with CN in the east and to acquire CN’s eastern operations. The new unit will have autonomy to determine its own equipment requirements, network rationalization and labour relationships. ” — Canadian Pacific Railway, November 21, 1995, http://www.trainweb.org/galt-stn/stlh.htm

The new wholly owned subsidiary was named the St. Lawrence & Hudson Railway Company Limited and became operational on October 1, 1996, taking control of all CPR assets from Quebec City to Chicago (CPR trackage and trackage rights), and from Montreal to Washington, D.C. (Delaware and Hudson Railway), thus the D&H became a SL&H subsidiary.

Successor/Parent History: The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), formerly also known as CP Rail (reporting mark CP) between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railroad incorporated in 1881. The railroad is owned by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (TSX: CP, NYSE: CP), which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001.

Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, it owns approximately 23,000 kilometres (14,000 mi) of track all across Canada and into the United States, stretching from Montreal to Vancouver, and as far north as Edmonton. Its rail network also serves major cities in the United States, such as Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, and New York City.

The railway was originally built between Eastern Canada and British Columbia between 1881 and 1885 (connecting with Ottawa Valley and Georgian Bay area lines built earlier), fulfilling a promise extended to British Columbia when it entered Confederation in 1871. It was Canada's first transcontinental railway, but currently does not reach the Atlantic coast. Primarily a freight railway, the CPR was for decades the only practical means of long-distance passenger transport in most regions of Canada, and was instrumental in the settlement and development of Western Canada. The CP became one of the largest and most powerful companies in Canada, a position it held as late as 1975. Its primary passenger services were eliminated in 1986, after being assumed by Via Rail Canada in 1978. A beaver was chosen as the railway's logo because it is the national symbol of Canada and was seen as representing the hardworking character of the company.

The company acquired two American lines in 2009: the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad and the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad. The trackage of the ICE was at one time part of CP subsidiary Soo Line and predecessor line The Milwaukee Road. The combined DME/ICE system spanned North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Iowa, as well as two short stretches into two other states, which included a line to Kansas City, Missouri, and a line to Chicago, Illinois, and regulatory approval to build a line into the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. It is publicly traded on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CP. Its U.S. headquarters are in Minneapolis.

After close of markets on November 17, 2015, CP announced an offer to purchase all outstanding shares of Norfolk Southern Railway, at a price in excess of the US$26 billion capitalization of the United States-based railway. If completed, this merger of the second and fourth oldest Class I railroads in North America would have formed the largest single railway company on that continent, reaching from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast to the Gulf Coast. The merger effort was abandoned by Canadian Pacific on April 11, 2016, after three offers were rejected by the Norfolk Southern board.

Read more on Wikipedia and on Canadian Pacific official website.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.