The Nickel Plate Railroad – Management Lessons Learned from the Company Built to Be Sold, 1881 – 1916

This study examines accounting records of the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company - Nickel Plate Railroad (NKP). The creation, management, and financial reports from its inception through 1916 provide a fundamental model for discovering inefficient management methods that led to the robber baron stigma of American businessmen, social disruption, and the creation of anti-trust laws. Evidence through accounting data, chronicled records, and a complete set of financial statements reveals that monopolistic practices in the late 1800s were so rampant that speculative investors built the NKP Railroad with the purpose of selling it to ensure anti-competitive control over prices. Additional findings include: structure and culture, not management, drove performance, laissez-faire business policy was a failure, the railroad industry miscarried its self-governance, the importance of social utility, and that it took over a half-century for government officials to effectively address the railroad problem. Outcomes also provide impetus to further explore the benefits of using private property for public benefit. Keywords – strategic management, entrepreneurship, railroad accounting, nickel plate, New York Central, Vanderbilt, anti-trust laws, Sherman Act, Federal Trade Commission, Clayton Act.