Southern Pacific was once a part of talks of merger with the Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line. When Southern Pacific became too greedy, Chessie walked away, but Seaboard had to struggle to leave Southern Pacific’s hostile take over attempt. The merger of Seaboard to Southern Pacific would have been a merger of unequals. Once the Seaboard -Southern relationship was ended, Watkins and Chessie could work on the merger of equals with Seaboard.