STB APPROVES CN ACQUISITION OF WISCONSIN CENTRAL

STB APPROVES CN ACQUISITION OF WISCONSIN CENTRAL    The U.S. Surface Transportation Board unanimously approved Canadian National Railway Co.'s acquisition of Wisconsin Central Transportation Corp.
   With the acquisition, “WC will become an even more integral part of CN's NAFTA network between Canada, the U.S. Midwest and the states between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico,” said Paul M. Tellier, CN's president and chief executive officer.
   CN will pay WC shareholders $17.15 per share for their stock. CN expects to complete the transaction on or about Oct. 9. In the deal CN acquires WC's 2,800-route miles of track and trackage rights. WC reported 2000 revenues of $372 million.
   Following the acquisition, WC will become CN's sixth operating division. Tellier has named Gordon T. Trafton as the new vice president in charge of the Wisconsin Central division.
   Trafton has 23 years of railroad experience, joining CN in July 1999 and serving most recently as vice president, operations integration. Before joining CN, he was vice president, transportation and information technology services at Illinois Central, which CN acquired in a merger. Prior to that he spent 18 years with Burlington Northern Railroad in a variety of positions.
   The STB addressed the CN acquisition as a minor transaction, not subject to the intensified merger rules the board announced earlier this year. Still, STB-imposed conditions of the CN-WC transaction include a one-year oversight of operational integration of the railroads, and a condition requiring CN to make good on the undertakings it made on the record during the merger proceedings, and adhering to its safety integration plan.
   CN also said the merger would increase transportation competition and preserve economic benefits for customers through extended single-line services.
   Canada's Competition Bureau cleared CN's acquisition of WC on July 10.