Southern Pacific Rail Corporation (SPRC) was a major U.S. railroad holding company established in 1988 when Rio Grande Industries, Inc. (founded by Philip Anschutz in the 1980s) acquired the financially struggling Southern Pacific Transportation Company. Following the acquisition on October 13, 1988, Rio Grande Industries was renamed Southern Pacific Rail Corporation to reflect its primary asset. SPRC controlled a vast network including the Southern Pacific lines, Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW), and St. Louis Southwestern Railway (Cotton Belt), operating over 15,000 miles of track primarily in the western United States, though this was reduced to about 13,715 miles by 1996 due to financial challenges. In 1996, Union Pacific Corporation acquired SPRC in a $3.9 billion transaction approved on August 12, 1996, merging its operations into Union Pacific and ending SPRC as an independent entity. Anschutz profited significantly from the sale. The corporation's roots trace back to the original Southern Pacific Railroad chartered in 1865, but SPRC specifically denotes the late-20th-century holding structure distinct from earlier incarnations.