Santa Fe Industries was the diversified parent company, headquartered in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, of the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at vario ...

. Formed in 1968, its non-railroad operations included construction, real estate, and energy units. In the early 1980s, after longtime head John Shedd Reed had been succeeded by John J. Schmidt, they arranged a merger with the

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the names ...

, where new head Robert Krebs had recently succeeded Benjamin Biaggini. When the

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later Trucking industry in the United States, truc ...

denied permission to merge the respective companies' railroad subsidiaries as the Southern Pacific Santa Fe Railroad, the merged holding company, which retained both companies' non-rail interests while being forced to sell the Southern Pacific, changed its name to

Santa Fe Pacific Corporation The Santa Fe Pacific Corporation was formed as the Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corporation on by the merger of Santa Fe Industries, which owned the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, with the Southern Pacific Company, which owned the Souther ...

. It has also been linked to controversies in the book titled '' American House of Saud'' by Steven Emerson.

References

United States railroad holding companies Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Defunct companies based in Chicago {{US-rail-company-stub