Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are in talks that would create a single U.S. railroad with service stretching from the East to the West Coast, according to a report by the Associated Press on Thursday.

While it is uncertain if a merger of the country’s largest and smallest railroads would be approved by the Surface Transportation Board, concerns over the future of the rail shops in Altoona have been raised.

A merger would likely lead to job reductions overall, as management tries to eliminate redundancies — which means there’s now uncertainty about staffing at the Juniata Locomotive Shop in Altoona, according to Dr. Randy Frye, dean of the Shields School of Business at Saint Francis University.

But things could go either way, and Frye is optimistic about the local shop, largely due to the “dedicated, experienced, skilled workforce” in the area.

“I don’t think Altoona will go away,” should the merger occur, Frye said. Nevertheless, the uncertainty might well cause a shop employee to hesitate about “buying a second home or a car,” the professor said.

Union Pacific, the much bigger company, has its own locomotive repair shops in Arkansas, Nebraska, California, Oregon and Texas, according to online sources. Union Pacific is the largest of the six major North American railroad companies, while Norfolk Southern is the smallest.

It’s conceivable that consolidation could reduce the worker complement in Altoona — but also that it could increase it, according to Frye.

It’s also conceivable that unions representing workers could extract guarantees against job losses in the context of regulatory approvals needed for the merger to take place, Frye said.

And it’s conceivable that, if the merger happens and the combined company is successful, jobs could even be added, he said.

“I want to see the shops continue to be in operation and to thrive,” said state Rep. Lou Schmitt, R-Blair. “I’m adamantly opposed to any merger that negatively affects my railroaders.”

The merger talks between the companies are in an “advanced” stage, according to a statement released by NS on Thursday.

But the likelihood of the “megamerger” happening is still only about 50-50, according to Frye.

“There’s going to be pushback,” he said.

That will include heavy antitrust “scrutiny” from agencies like the Surface Transportation Board, which will consider whether the merger will diminish competition and undermine the public good, Frye said.

It will also likely include opposition from labor unions that supply workers; customer groups, including big shippers like the auto, agriculture and energy industries that don’t want to face quasi-monopolistic pricing power in some contexts; and perhaps competitive rivals like BNSF Railway and competitive industries like trucking, according to Frye.

“The problems with mergers is that they lessen competition, lessen choice for the consumer,” he said.

“My gut feeling is that it is not in the public interest,” he said.

Norfolk and Union Pacific can argue that creating the first transcontinental freight company for seamless shipment ocean to ocean — eliminating the transition “bottleneck” in Chicago — would create efficiencies of scale and be a boon to shippers and the public, strengthening the nation’s supply chains and bolstering the rail industry against trucking, which has been making inroads since the 1960s, he said.

One motivation for the merger is likely to amass capital needed for investment in technology, including AI, and to put into practice sustainable business practices, including a reduction in carbon footprint, while generally updating “aging infrastructure,” Frye said.

Challenges with the merger could include melding the two corporate cultures, he said.

If those are not complementary, it can create conflict, corrode morale and diminish productivity, he said.

The details of making the merged companies mesh would be “staggering” in their complexity, according to Frye.

The current presidential administration is generally pro-business, but “I don’t think it’s a done deal,” he said.

Lawmakers will likely be drawn in, and President Donald Trump may end up being the final decisionmaker, he said.

It’s a long process that would take at least a year or a year and a half, Schmitt predicted.

A successful merger could encourage further mergers among the remaining handful of major U.S. railroads, tightening an already small oligopoly, Frye said.

Merger proposals usually arise out of “economic necessity and tough” conditions, according to Frye.

Railroading is beset by challenges, as a “mature” industry with flat sales due to factors like a “sluggish” market for cars and a volatile one for coal, he said.

Mergers in such conditions can be the only “way to grow,” he said.

But it’s all “a bit unsettling,” Frye said.

“Hopefully, this (potential) acquisition is good for Blair County,” said state Rep. Scott Barger, R-Blair/Huntingdon.

“My concerns are my shops,” Schmitt said. “(And) my railroaders.”

“Fingers crossed,” Barger said.

“My hope is the shops are preserved, and the work down there even expands,” Schmitt said.