Confident the deal would be approved, the company began repainting their locomotives into a new unified paint scheme that would allow the future railroad to be called SPSF.

Amid an era of major railroad mergers and acquisitions, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and the Southern Pacific Transportation Company announced on September 27, 1983, that they too would merge.

[5] So confident the deal would be approved, the company began repainting their locomotives into a new unified paint scheme that would allow the future railroad to be called the SPSF Railway.

[6] The Justice Department and competing railroads strongly criticized the merger, but industry analysts largely expected the deal to be approved.

[4][5] The company was stunned on July 24, 1986, when the ICC board rejected the proposed merger, saying that the anti-competitive problems outweighed the public benefits of joining the rail systems.

Specifically, in the 4-1 decision, the ICC cited that the railroads had extensive parallel operations in California and across the Southwest, and that merging the lines would have a “substantial adverse effect” on competition.

On April 20, 1987, Santa Fe Southern Pacific Chairman and CEO John J. Schmidt resigned under pressure, reportedly ousted by the company's board of directors who were displeased with the way the merger was handled.

The Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corporation was so confident the merger would be approved, the company began repainting their locomotives into a new unified paint scheme that would allow the future railroad to be called the SPSF Railway.