The Consolidated Rail Corporation, better known as simply Conrail, was the government’s answer to the collapse of rail service in the northeast in the early 1970s. After picking up the pieces of the collapsed Penn Central and bankrupt Erie Lackawanna, Lehigh Valley, Reading, Central Railroad of New Jersey, and Lehigh & Hudson River the company was able to finally turn a profit by the end of 1981, 5 1/2 years after beginning operations on April 1, 1976. In the mid-1990s the now profitable Conrail was split up between Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation with the railroads taking over their respective halves on June 1, 1999.