from _Main Lines_

[walkitout]

Pennsylvania Central's ill-managed merger and subsequent reorganization through bankruptcy led to tales of lost cars and lost trains, because the components had no plan going into it regarding which component's yards should receive what (the result -- shippers used whatever was handy, and paperwork got separated from the goods, and yards just put the unknowns together and sent them to some other yard and around and around it went -- does bring home just why acquisitions are generally managed as if nothing changed for months or years). In this whirling confusion, a midwestern small railroad, the LaSalle & Bureau County, stole 352 boxcars, repainted them, and rented them back to Pennsylvania Central. (p 48)

The big surprise here, I suppose, is that the crime was eventually discovered.