Two months later, the Carolina, Atlantic and Western changed its name to the Seaboard Air Line Railroad.


The Mississippian Railway is a short line railroad operating from Amory, Mississippi, to Fulton, Mississippi. It is operated by the Mississippian Railway Cooperative.


The MSRW interchanges with the BNSF Railway at Amory, Mississippi. The MSRW's shops are also located in Amory.


The Mississippian Railway was established in 1923 primarily to haul lumber products from Fulton south to the interchange with the Frisco Railway in Amory.


In 1944 a bentonite plant was built in Smithville to take advantage of a large deposit discovered there which led to a surge in business for the line and its nickname "The Bentonite Road". By 1968 the bentonite deposits near Smithville had been depleted and the plant closed, however several industries had moved to Fulton and continued to provide traffic for the railroad.


Today the Mississippian hauls between 100 and 120 cars a month operating three days a week.


The railroad previously operated a pair of 1920 Baldwin 2-8-0s until 1967 when diesels replaced them. Currently the MSRW operates an EMD GP7 (no. 102).


The two famous Baldwin 2-8-0 Consolidation steam locomotives survive:


The Experimental Railroad was a horse-driven railroad in Raleigh, North Carolina built in 1833 to transport granite for the North Carolina State Capitol from a quarry one mile away in southeast Raleigh. It is considered North Carolina's first railroad.


North Carolina's first self-powered railroad was the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, built in 1840.


The Kansas City Suburban Belt Railroad was a railway located throughout the suburban Kansas City area. The railway was incorporated by Arthur Stilwell and Edward L. Martin in 1887, and began operation in 1890. In September 1900, it was placed under the receivership control of Stuart R. Knott and Edward F. Swinney with the aim of merging the railroad into the Kansas City Southern Railway system.


The Greigsville and Pearl Creek Railroad was a railroad in the U.S. state of New York. Despite its name, it only existed in the immediate vicinity of Greigsville, a small community in the town of York, and did not reach Pearl Creek, a hamlet in Covington.


The company was organized October 1, 1897 and chartered January 26, 1898, to build from the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad's main line at North Greigsville (present-day Greigsville) west to the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway at Pearl Creek. Three miles (5 km) were constructed from the DL&W to the Greigsville Salt Mine, but the mine closed in June 1899, and operations were suspended.


The actual location of Greigsville Salt Mine is not clear. Mindat puts the mine on a residential street (Virginia Avenue), but the USGS Topographic map puts the mine at the end of an unnamed road to the northwest. The railroad would have extended past the mine by at least the length of one train, in order to be able to load the entire train from one point.


The Lewiston & Youngstown Frontier Electric Railway connected the villages of Lewiston and Youngstown in Niagara County, New York.


The company was set-up by a number of local capitalists in the summer of 1895. After a number of surveys the railroad was finally located through private property between these villages, about one-quarter of a mile easterly from the River Road, thus avoiding the destruction of property along the banks of the lower Niagara River, or occupying the highway.


The contract for the construction of the roadbed, ballasting, overhead work and fencing was let April 12, 1896, to Craige & Tench, Buffalo, New York, for the sum of $63,500. The railroad started from the New York Central depot at Lewiston and ran up Center street to 5th street. Then it ran northerly through 5th street to the village limits, then through private lands to 3rd street, Youngstown, then through Church street to Main street and to the United States Military Reservation, at the mouth of the Niagara River. There was also a branch in Lewiston from 5th street through Onondaga street to the New York Central freight station and a branch in Youngstown to the docks. The road was long in all.


The country through which this road ran is extremely level and is in the heart of the Niagara fruit district, being largely devoted to the culture of apples, peaches and grapes. The right of way is in width and fenced throughout its entire length between the villages. There were no structures whatever on the line, with the exception of a few wooden box culverts and one trestle long and about high.


The road was single track of and had five turnouts in the course of the line with end switches at each end. In the two villages the track was laid with girder rails, of 67-lb/yard (32.5 kg/m) and of 87-lb/yard (43.5 kg/m) and in the country for with 56-lb/yard (27.7kg/m) T-rails. The Johnson Company furnished the rails and track fastenings and all the rails except the 87-lb/yard (43.5 kg/m) girders which were rolled by the Pennsylvania Steel Company. The ties were of cedar, x , spaced between centers. The line was ballasted with


broken stone which was deep under the ties.


R. W. Oliver furnished the overhead work at a cost of $9,750. In the villages span work was used and in the country side pole bracket work. The trolley wire was No. 00 and there were nearly of No. 0000 stranded triple covered feed wire starting from Lewiston and reaching nearly to Youngstown. All poles and fence posts were painted olive green.


No power plant was constructed by this company, because power could be obtained from the plant of the Niagara Falls & Power Company, which was situated away from Lewiston. It was generated by one of the 1.000-h.p. generators situated in the new power house at the foot of the cliff at a voltage of 550 Volts. This was raised to 750 volts by being passed through a booster and was conveyed to Lewiston over a 500,000 circular mil stranded copper wire triple covered. This wire was strung on the poles of the Niagara Gorge Railroad and thus brought to Lewiston, where it was connected with the trolley and feed wire.


The equipment consisted of four, eight bench open motor cars and two closed combination baggage and passenger cars seating 16 people, made by the J. G. Brill Company, Philadelphia. The combination cars had a vestibule on the passenger end, and the baggage compartment, which was long, had sliding doors on each side and three drop sash in the front end allowing the motorman to occupy the baggage compartment when running that end forward, but there was no vestibule. All these cars are equipped with Brill eureka maximum traction trucks, with diameter wheels. Each truck was equipped with one G.E. 1,000 motor, thus giving each car horizontal tractive pull. The


total cost of roadway, equipment, transmission line, land


damages, etc., amounted to very nearly $100,000.


After a number of delays, owing to the non-arrival of material, etc., the road was informally opened the latter part of August, 1896. The company contemplated a freight as well as a passenger service, and was handling about 10 cars of freight per day in 1897, beside package freight. A steady passenger traffic was maintained between the points mentioned, which increased during the summer.


When the Niagara Gorge Railroad was taken out of use in 1935, the Lewiston & Youngstown Frontier Electric Railway remained in service as a diesel freight line.


The engineering work was led by Paul Voorhes of Buffalo. He constructed other rails, among them Buffalo & Williamsville Electric Railway and the Buffalo, Gardenville & Ebenezer Railway.


The Georgia Midland Railroad was a shortline railroad that operated several lines in Georgia that it acquired in 2004 from the initial operations of Ogeechee Railway. In 2009 the Georgia Midland was purchased by Pioneer RailCorp from Atlantic Western Transportation Company, the holding company for the Heart of Georgia Railroad. Pioneer renamed the railroad as the Georgia Southern Railway. Hauling an average of 5000 carloads per year of aggregate sand, stone, farm products and wood, the Georgia Midland Railroad connected with the Norfolk Southern Railway.


Initially the Georgia Midland operated three branch lines, all within Georgia, connecting Roberta through Fort Valley to Perry, Dover through Statesboro to Metter, and Ardmore to Sylvania. Subsequently the Ardmore-Sylvania line was returned to Ogeechee Railroad, which now operates it.


In 2006 the Georgia Midland was named Short Line Railroad of the Year by railroad industry trade journal Railway Age.


The Crawford County Railroad ran from Girard to Walnut in Crawford County, Kansas, USA. It was established on February 6, 1884, from the failed Nebraska, Topeka, Iola and Memphis Railroad. The Crawford County Railroad lasted for nine days before being acquired by the Kansas Southern Railroad.


Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad


The Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad was a 19th- and early-20th-century railway company in Kentucky in the United States. It operated from 1878, when it purchased the Central Mississippi, until 1951, when it was purchased by the Illinois Central.


In 1896, it purchased the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad and those former rights-of-way currently form parts of the class-II Paducah and Louisville. In 1897, it purchased the Short Route Railway Transfer Company; the Ohio Valley Railway; and the Owensboro, Falls of Rough and Green River Railroad. In 1902, it purchased the Kentucky Western and the Hodgenville and Elizabethtown Railways. In 1913, it purchased the Paducah Union Depot Company and the Kentucky Valley Railroad. In 1922, it purchased the Kentucky Midland.


The Chicago, St. Louis & New Orleans connected with the Owensboro and Nashville Railway (and later the L&N) at Central City in Muhlenberg County.


The Hartwell Railroad dates to 1878 when the company was chartered to build a narrow gauge rail line between Hartwell and Bowersville in Hart County, Georgia. The 10-mile railroad was completed the following year. In 1898, it was reorganized as the Hartwell Railway. Southern Railway gained control of the line in 1902, had it converted to , and sold the line in 1924.


The Hartwell Railway's line today is operated by the Great Walton Railroad, based in Social Circle, Georgia, which also operates Athens Line, LLC. In the Jackson County, Georgia community of Center, the Hartwell Railway connects with Norfolk Southern Railway.


Currently, the rail line along Highway 51, including the Depot and Platform are being rented to TORCH of Hartwell, Inc. TORCH of Hartwell, Inc. plans on revitalizing the rail line into a community park with the support of grants, The City of Hartwell and residents.


The railroad's roster consists of older EMD 4-axle locomotives still in the paint schemes of the Denver & Rio Grande Western, Conrail, and Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad.


The Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway is a defunct railroad which operated in the US state of Michigan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Itself the product of several consolidations in the 1870s, it became part of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad in 1928.


The DGH&M was formed from the ruin of Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad, a successor road to the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad, one of the first roads organized in the state of Michigan. The Great Western Railway, a Canadian company, had taken financial control of the D&M in 1860 after it defaulted on debt payments. The D&M entered receivership in 1875; in 1878 Great Western purchased it outright and refinanced the debts. The reorganized company bore the name Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee Railway. Its Grand Rapids, Michigan station was located at the corner of Plainfield and East Leonard.


The new company possessed a line stretching from Detroit in the southeast to Grand Haven on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. By 1882 the road came under the ownership of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada when the Grand Trunk acquired the Great Western, but it was not formally consolidated until 1928.


The Kearney and Black Hills Railway was a short line railroad built in the late 19th century between Kearney and Callaway, Nebraska. It was purchased by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1898.


Anacostia Rail Holdings Company is a transportation development and consulting firm responsible for the operations of several railroads:


Founded in 1985, it is based at the Railway Exchange Building in Chicago, Illinois, and has an office in New York City.


Anacostia Rail Holdings Company, formerly Anacostia & Pacific, has developed eight new U. S. railroads. In each case, the company negotiated the terms of acquisition, developed the business plan and recruited senior management. Anacostia & Pacific also provides management consulting services, analyses and expert testimony. Its clients have included governmental agencies, class I and short line railroads and financial institutions.


The Kinston and Snow Hill Railroad is a short-line railroad in Kinston, North Carolina. The railroad operates a industrial spur from a junction with the Norfolk Southern Railway to the Global TransPark. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gulf and Ohio Railways. It is named for a railroad of the same name which operated the same route from 1903 to 1913. The railroad owns a single EMD SW900 locomotive.


The Flint River and Northeastern Railroad was incorporated on June 26, 1903, built in 1904 and operated between Pelham and Ticknor, Georgia, USA. Originally operated by the Higgston Lumber Company, the railroad was purchased by the Thomas N. Baker Lumber Company in 1905, and the headquarters was moved from Pelham to Ticknor.


On May 11, 1906, the railroad company was sold by the Thomas N. Baker Lumber Company to G.E. Smith; but the sale was mired in controversy surrounding unsettled claims at the time of sale that were brought before the Supreme Court of Georgia in 1911. The case brought by Baker against Smith was the result of Smith deducting the railroad company's preexisting and as yet unsettled debt from his payment to Baker. The court ruled in favor of Smith.


The railroad was purchased by the Georgia Northern Railway in about 1910 and was operated as a subsidiary until 1946, when it was abandoned. In 1929, the Interstate Commerce Commission's proposal of railroad consolidations would have placed the railroad in the Illinois Central system.


Coe Rail was an excursion and freight rail line running between West Bloomfield, Michigan and Wixom, Michigan. It was best known for its Michigan Star Clipper Dinner Train.


In 2007, it was renamed the Michigan Air-Line Railway.


The Louisville, Cincinnati and Lexington Railway was a 19th-century railway company in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It operated from 1877, when it absorbed the failed Louisville, Cincinnati and Lexington Railroad, until 1881, when it was purchased by the Louisville and Nashville network. Its former rights-of-way currently form parts of the class-I CSX Transportation system.


The line was responsible for the establishment of Wilder, Kentucky.


The Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad is a shortline railroad operating in the midwest United States. Despite the name, it is primarily located in Kansas but extends into Colorado, not Oklahoma.


The KO is a subsidiary of Watco Companies, which took over the operations of the Central Kansas Railway (CKRY) at midnight on June 29, 2001. The KO started operating at 12:01 A.M. on June 30, 2001. The CKRY property (which by this time included the merged Kansas Southwestern Railway) was purchased from OmniTrax and was named the Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad.


The KO consists of trackage radiating north and west from their headquarters at Wichita, Kansas. Most of this trackage was originally operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, although a few segments were originally operated by the Missouri Pacific.


The tracks Kansas & Oklahoma RR operate on also includes portions of the former Missouri Pacific Kansas City to Pueblo main line in Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado.


820 miles of track are owned by KO, and another 84 miles is accounted for in trackage rights.


As of March 2005, the K&O consisted of the following subdivisions:


The Cedar River Railroad is a shortline subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway that operates on former Illinois Central Gulf Railroad trackage. In 1991, the railroad was formed as a reorganization of the bankrupt Cedar Valley Railroad, which had begun operations in 1984. It was owned by the Chicago Central and Pacific Railroad, itself an ICG spin-off that was reacquired by the successor Illinois Central Railroad in 1996.


The railroad has connections with the Union Pacific Railroad in Glenville, Minnesota, Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad in Charles City, Iowa and Lyle, Minnesota, and Chicago Central and Pacific Railroad at Waterloo, Iowa.


The Kent County and Delaware Bay Railroad was an American railroad company in Kent County, Maryland and Kent County, Delaware. The railroad spanned from Chestertown, Maryland to Woodland Beach, Delaware where it met daily with steamboats from the Delaware City, Salem, and Philadelphia Steamboat Company.


The Monroe and Toledo Railway is a defunct railroad which operated in southeast Michigan during the mid-1890s. The company was chartered on March 29, 1893, with the proposed object of constructing a line from the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad's Monroe terminal to the Ohio border, just north of Toledo. On November 15, 1896, the M&T completed a line from Monroe to Alexis, north of Toledo. In 1897 the F&PM purchased the M&T outright.


The Louisiana and Northwest Railroad is a short-line railroad headquartered in Homer, Louisiana.


LNW operates a line in Arkansas and Louisiana from McNeil, Arkansas (where it interchanges with Union Pacific Railroad), to Gibsland, Louisiana (where it interchanges with Kansas City Southern Railway). The section from McNeil to Magnolia, Arkansas, is leased from Union Pacific.


LNW was incorporated in 1889. On June 10, 2008, Patriot Rail Corporation announced that it had purchased LNW for an undisclosed amount.


The East Tennessee Railway, L.P. is a short line railroad connecting CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway in Johnson City, Tennessee. Since 2005, the railroad has been owned by Genesee and Wyoming, an international operator of short line railroads, as part of its Rail Link group. The railroad uses a single diesel locomotive, SW1200 #214, to serve a small number of industries and a transloading facility, as well as to provide interchange services between NS and CSX.


The current regular gauge railroad is a remnant of a larger, narrow gauge railroad, the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad, chartered in 1866 to haul iron ore from Cranberry, North Carolina to Johnson City across the Appalachian Mountains. Through an acquisition and track extensions, the railroad grew to serve Boone, North Carolina and Saginaw, North Carolina. ET&WNC used dual gauge tracks between Johnson City and Elizabethton; eventually the railroad ceased all narrow gauge operations and only operated standard gauge service on this one section. Later, with a change in ownership this limited line was reorganized as the East Tennessee Railway.


In 2003, the last train left Elizabethton, TN and in 2009 the line was formally abandoned and railbanked. The rails and ties were removed in 2012 to make way for a rail-trail. The East Tennessee Railway still services customers around the yard in Johnson City and still makes deliveries to the CSXT and NS.


ETRY started out with a two-man crew for many years, and have just now upped to a three-man crew. Operations are Monday through Friday.


The Fulton County Railway began operations in 2004, operating on about 25 miles of track owned by CSX Transportation in Georgia. It is owned by OmniTRAX.


The Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway is a short line railroad in the U.S. state of Montana which was founded in 1892. It was financed by the interests behind the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and operated primarily to carry copper ore from the mines at Butte, Montana to the smelters at Anaconda, Montana, although the company was chartered as a common carrier and also carried passengers and general freight.


The BA&P was an electrification pioneer, converting in 1913 and being the first primarily freight railroad to electrify. Electrification was at 2,400 volts DC; the work was performed by General Electric and the railroad's own staff. As described in a period article:


The electrification was abandoned in 1967 as it had become cheaper to operate diesel-electric locomotives.


Many resources of the railway were included in the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.


The railroad as a whole lost much of its business following the closure of the Anaconda smelters, and in 1985 was sold to a consortium of local investors and reconstituted as the Rarus Railway .


In 1985, The B.A.&P. became the backdrop of a full-length feature film called Runaway Train. The film was directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, & stars Jon Voight, who was nominated for an Academy Award & won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Eric Roberts, who was nominated for an Academy Award & Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, Rebecca DeMornay, John P. Ryan, Kyle T. Heffner, Kenneth McMillan & Edward Bunker who also co-wrote the script. It was filmed on the B.A.&P. Railway & at the Roundhouse at Anaconda in March 1985. The film was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture - Drama.


On July 19, 2007, Patriot Rail Corporation, the parent company which acquired Rarus Railway in May 2007, announced that the railway's name was officially changed back to Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway.


The Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad was a 19th-century railway company in Kentucky in the United States. It operated from 1882, when it purchased the Paducah and Elizabethtown Railroad and the Memphis, Paducah and Northern Railroad, until 1896, when it was purchased by the Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad. It later made up part of the Illinois Central network and its former rights-of-way currently form parts of the class-II Paducah and Louisville Railway.


It connected with the Owensboro and Nashville Railway (subsequently part of the L&N network) at Central City in Muhlenberg County.


The Charleston Union Station Company was a railroad company based in Charleston, South Carolina, that operated throughout much of the 20th century.


The Charleston Union Station Company was chartered by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1902 to acquire and operate terminal facilities in Charleston. Construction was begun in 1905 and the company was open for operation in November 1907.


The Charleston Union Station Company owned and operated a passenger station in Charleston. It also owned and used nearly one-third of a mile of track and a little more than two miles of yard tracks and sidings.


The Charleston Union Station Company was controlled by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and the Southern Railway.


The station was on the corner of East Bay and Columbus Streets and burned in early 1947. Some time later the site area was sold to the South Carolina State Ports Authority, which continues to use it.


The company continued for many years after the loss of the station.


The Elmira, Corning and Waverly Railway was an electric interurban line connecting the cities of Elmira, Waverly, and Corning along the Southern Tier region of New York State. The railroad was briefly controlled by the Erie Railroad. Completed in 1911, traffic dwindled through the 1920s in the face of stiff competition from better roads and increased automobile ownership. The effects of the Great Depression hastened the abandonment of all service in 1930. Replacement bus service was provided by Carpenter's Rapid Transit of Corning.


The Beaver Meadows Railroad & Coal Company was chartered April 7, 1830, to build a railroad from the mines near Beaver Meadows, Pennsylvania, beyond Broad Mountain along Beaver Creek to Penn Haven and along the Lehigh River through Mauch Chunk to the Lehigh Canal at Parryville, Pennsylvania. The settlement dated to a 1787 land sale to Patrick and Mary Keene, thence to Nathan Beach.


The Golden Triangle Railroad is a railway in central Mississippi, totalling length. It is owned by the Patriot Rail Corporation. The GTRA interchanges with the Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS) at Columbus, Mississippi, and with Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Columbus & Greenville, Luxapalila Valley and Norfolk Southern via trackage rights over the KCS.


The GTRA serves an International Paper fiber mill in Trinity. It primarily hauls woodpulp, corn starch and chemicals, and utilises three locomotives. , the GTRA employs nine workers.


The Bridgeport Traction Company was a streetcar transit company in the area around Bridgeport, Connecticut. The company was incorporated in 1893 through the consolidation of the Bridgeport Horse Railroad Company, Bridgeport Railway Company, and the East End Railway Company. The East End Railway Company was established in 1895 as the Bridgeport and West Stratford Horse Railroad Company. The Bridgeport Horse Railroad Company was incorporated in 1864. The Bridgeport Railway Company was formed in 1893. At the time, streetcars were a more affordable form of transportation for those commuting between Bridgeport and Norwalk. Using streetcars to get to their destination was half the price of using the train. In 1899 president Andrew Radel formed a company that was intended to control the world's oyster trade.


In 1901, Bridgeport Traction Company was sold to the Connecticut Railway and Lighting Company. From 1906 to 1936, its routes were controlled by the Connecticut Company, a subsidiary of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad which controlled many of the streetcar operators across the state. The leases on the former Connecticut Railway and Lighting Co. routes were voided in 1936 for nonpayment while the New Haven was in receivership. CR&L resumed operation under its own name, and streetcar lines in Bridgeport, Derby, and Waterbury were replaced with buses in 1937. Bus transit operations continued until 1972. The transit franchises were succeeded by the Greater Bridgeport Transportation Authority soon after.


Juniata Terminal Co. is a locomotive leasing and railcar storage company. The company takes its name from the facility in Philadelphia from which it operates.


The company owns a number of restored diesel locomotives, including a pair of former Conrail EMD E8s which have been meticulously overhauled and painted in the Pennsylvania Railroad wide-stripe paint scheme. These two units often pull the company's private passenger cars, and can be seen on special excursions with Amtrak equipment. As of 2019, these units are not in operation due to a decision by the owner not to retrofit them with positive train control (PTC). Traffic on most Class I railroad main lines were required to be equipped with PTC by 2019 in accordance with the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.


The three-track Juniata Terminal facility was built in 1928 by the Pennsylvania Railroad as the Philadelphia L-C-L less-than-carload freight terminal.


The Danbury and Harlem Traction Company was an unfinished electric rapid-transit interurban railroad connecting Danbury, Connecticut with the New York Central Railroad station at Goldens Bridge, New York on the Harlem Line.


The company was stablished in 1901 as the consolidation of the "Danbury and Goldens Bridge Street Railway of Connecticut" and the "Goldens Bridge Electric Railway of New York", and set out to build from Danbury. The motivation was to provide a faster passenger route to New York than that offered by the Danbury Branch of the New Haven Railroad.


Construction progressed slowly. Tracks were laid from a connection with the Danbury and Bethel Street Railway near the Danbury Fairgrounds, west through Ridgebury and eventually just across the state line to North Salem, New York by 1901. Aside from a few test runs with cars borrowed from the Danbury and Bethel line, there is no indication that regular service was ever offered on the partially completed line.


In 1902, the project was acquired by the Westchester Traction Company, and immediately investors were sought to continue construction. This extended the roadbed grade to Goldens Bridge, but no further rails were ever laid. Permission was obtained to open between Danbury and Ridgebury in 1903 and a limited service was operated, possibly by the Danbury and Bethel Street Railway, but this was short-lived. Looking to recoup some of the shareholder's investment, the company directors ordered the rails to be lifted sometime between 1910 and 1915, and the project was abandoned.


Much of the line is traceable around Ridgefield, including a section called Old Trolley Road, and earthworks survive here and there.


The Marion and Rye Valley Railway was a standard gauge logging railroad that ran from an intersection with the Norfolk and Western Railway at Marion, Virginia, southward to Sugar Grove, Virginia.


At Sugar Grove, it intersected with the Virginia Southern Railroad which ran from Sugar Grove, across Iron Mountain, through Troutdale and then westward to Fairwood. There was also a branch from the wye track at Sugar Grove that went eastward toward Camp, Virginia. The two railroads combined formed a line operating some 27 or so miles. Both were initially owned separately, but eventually fell under the same management and ownership.


The main line followed future Highway 16 S from Marion, Va for several miles until turning right onto Currin Valley road. The railroad featured four switchbacks between Currin Valley, south of Marion, and Teas, just west of Sugar Grove, and another set of switchbacks between Sugar Grove and Troutdale at the top of Iron Mountain.


Motive power for the railroad was provided by Shay-type locomotives, an Alco consolidation, a Heisler, and an Edwards Motorcar.


The railroad was chartered by the State Corporation Commission of Virginia in 1891 as the Marion and Rye Valley "Railroad", reorganized in 1900 as the "Marion and Rye Valley Railway Company", and disbanded in 1931 and sold to the Marion Brick Company. The line was abandoned sometime afterward.


There are virtually no remains of the railroads today other than abandoned railroad grades and a few spikes that are eroded out of the old grades from time to time.


Jersey City, Hoboken and Rutherford Electric Railway


The Jersey City, Hoboken and Rutherford Electric Railway was incorporated in 1893, and leased from 1894-1899 to the New Jersey Electric Railway Company. The line was operated by Jersey City, Hoboken and Paterson Street Railway. The track length was 18.57 miles.


The rail line in Hoboken, New Jersey, was controversial at the time. Officials were concerned that an electric railway would endanger the public and frighten horses.


The Georgia, Carolina and Northern Railway was a Southeastern railroad that began after Reconstruction and operated up until the start of the 20th century.


The Georgia, Carolina and Northern Railway was founded in 1886 with the goal of building a line from Monroe, North Carolina, to Atlanta, Georgia. Construction on the line began in 1887 in North Carolina.


By 1892 the railroad had almost completed its original plan when a court injunction halted its progress into Atlanta. As a result, the GC&N developed the Seaboard Air Line Belt Railroad. The Seaboard Air Line Belt Railroad ran about from Belt Junction, Georgia, (near Emory University), west to the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway for which the Georgia, Carolina and Northern Railway had trackage rights into Atlanta. In 1898 the railroad acquired the Loganville and Lawrenceville Railroad.


In 1901 the GC&N was formally merged into the Seaboard Air Line Railway.


The Dansville and Mount Morris Railroad is a short line railroad located in Dansville, New York.


The Dansville and Mount Morris Railroad first opened in the 1870s. It extended the entire length from Dansville to Mount Morris, New York.


The line operated independently until the July 23, 1985 purchase by Genesee & Wyoming Inc. It is now operated as part of the Rochester and Southern Railroad, but still exists as a non-operating subsidiary of Genesee and Wyoming.


The Diamond and Caldor Railway was a common carrier narrow gauge railroad operating in El Dorado County, California, in the United States. The 34-mile railroad was primarily a logging railroad but also did some passenger service.


The railroad was constructed in 1904 and operations continued until abandonment commenced on April 10, 1953. The railroad primarily operated with Shay locomotives. The remaining Shays, with the exception of #4, were scrapped in 1953. Engine #4 was displayed at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds for several years and is now in the process of being restored by the El Dorado Western Railway Foundation.


The railroad operated between Diamond Springs, California (located near Placerville) and went east along the North Fork of the Cosumnes River and then to Caldor.


The railroad was a subsidiary of the California Door Company of Oakland. Before a 1923 fire destroyed the mill at Caldor, the line hauled rough-cut lumber from Caldor to the sash and door factory in Diamond Springs. After the company built a modern electric mill at Diamond Springs, the railroad hauled uncut logs from the woods to the new mill.


Because the Diamond & Caldor was a common carrier, it had to comply with Interstate Commerce Commission regulations. The railroad failed to comply with the ICC requirement to have railroad cars equipped with air brakes and automatic couplers. The Diamond and Caldor, according to railroad historian Donald B. Robertson, may be the only western railroad to be put out of business due to those equipment requirements.


The Millville Traction Company operated streetcars in Millville, New Jersey, and along an interurban streetcar line to Vineland, New Jersey, along Main Road (now CR 555) and Landis Avenue.


The company was chartered in 1894 and opened its main line on August 1, 1901. Also in 1901, the Millville Rapid Transit Company, which had been leased, was merged into the Millville Traction Company.


The Louisville, Cincinnati and Lexington Railroad was a 19th-century railway company in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It operated from 1869, when it was created from the merger of the Louisville and Frankfort and Lexington and Frankfort railroads, until 1877, when it failed and was reincorporated as the Louisville, Cincinnati and Lexington Rail"way". It later made up part of the Louisville and Nashville network and its former rights-of-way currently form parts of the class-I CSX Transportation system.


The Hawkinsville and Florida Southern Railway (H&FS) was founded in 1896 and by 1901 was operating of track from Hawkinsville to Worth, Georgia, USA, where it connected with the Georgia Southern and Florida Railroad. It also operated a line between Davisville and Fitzgerald, Georgia. In 1907, a portion of the H&FS was leased to the Gulf Line Railway However, in 1913, the H&FS took over operations and fully absorbed the Gulf Line resulting in a line from Hawkinsville to Camilla, Georgia. In 1922, the H&FS went bankrupt. The section from Camilla to Ashburn, Georgia, was purchased by the Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester and Camilla Railway but no buyers could be found for the remainder of the system and it was abandoned by 1923.


The Dooly Southern Railway was chartered in 1897 and operated 9 miles of track between Richwood, Georgia and Pinia, Georgia starting in 1898. It was operated by the Parrott Lumber Company and was mainly a logging line, but it also served as a common carrier. It was abandoned in 1903.


The Bridgeton and Millville Traction Company was a streetcar company in southern New Jersey.


In addition to trackage in Bridgeton, the following interurban streetcar lines were operated:


In 1897, the South Jersey Traction Company was sold at foreclosure to the Bridgeton and Millville Traction Company, which was chartered May 3, 1897. The Bridgeton Rapid Transit Company (5 miles) was leased by the B&M.


The line from Cedarville to Port Norris was built in 1902.


The company ceased operations in 1922 due to being delinquent in paying taxes.


Leadville, Colorado and Southern Railroad is a tourist railroad based in Leadville, Colorado, United States.


On June 25 and 26, 2013, members of the North American Railcar Operators Association (NARCOA) operated their privately owned railroad motorcars over the Leadville, Colorado and Southern.


The Hot Springs Railroad ran between Malvern, Arkansas and Hot Springs.


It was sometimes called the "Diamond Jo Line" because of its developer and sole owner, Joseph "Diamond Jo" Reynolds.


Construction of narrow-gauge tracks began in April 1875. Trains began operating on the 21-mile line a year later.


On October 16, 1889, it was converted from a narrow-gauge railway to standard gauge in about three hours, after several months of preparation. The brick roundhouse and turntable in Malvern were modified for standard-gauge operation, and remained the principal locomotive shop for the railroad.


Reynolds was a successful steamboat operator from Chicago, Illinois. He gained the name "Diamond Jo" by marking his steamboats with the name "Jo" surrounded by a diamond. Reynolds was also known as the "Steamboat King."


Today, Hot Springs Railroad's tracks are owned and operated by Arkansas Midland Railroad , a Class III short-line railroad headquartered in Malvern.


AKMD operates of line in Arkansas consisting of seven disconnected branch lines. The AKMD branches were originally part of the Hot Springs Railroad, and later part of the Union Pacific Railroad. All branch lines connect (interchange traffic) with Union Pacific Railroad. AKMD also interchanges with BNSF in North Little Rock.


AKMD operates on from Malvern, through Jones Mills, through Hot Springs and to Mountain Pine.


The Indiana Southern Railroad is a short line or Class III railroad operating in the United States state of Indiana. It began operations in 1992 as a RailTex property, and was acquired by RailAmerica in 2000. RailAmerica was itself acquired by Genesee & Wyoming in December 2012.


Indiana Southern Railroad operates 186 miles of track from Indianapolis to Evansville. From Mars Hill (a neighborhood on the southwest side of Indianapolis) southwest through Martinsville and Spencer to Bee Hunter in Greene County, the ISRR runs on tracks that once made up the majority of the former Indianapolis & Vincennes Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. State Route 67 parallels the ISRR along much of this section. From Bee Hunter to Elnora the ISRR has trackage rights over the Indiana Rail Road. ISRR tracks resume from Elnora through Washington in Daviess County, Petersburg in Pike County, Oakland City in Gibson County, Elberfeld in Warrick County and Daylight in Vanderburgh County before terminating in Evansville along the former New York Central's Evansville & Indianapolis Branch.


The Indiana Southern began operations with a fleet of 10 ex-CSX EMD GP40 locomotives which were rebuilt without dynamic brakes and identified as GP40-1s.


As of 2018, the ISRR currently operates 10 ex-BNSF EMD SD40-2 locomotives acquired from First Union Railway Equipment in 2013 after the railroad became Genesee & Wyoming property. Additionally, the railroad owns two G&W rebuilt GP40-3 locomotives, 3051 and 3052. ISRR 3051 was rebuilt from ISRR 4051, one of the original GP40-1s originally fleeted and is the only remaining original member of the fleet. Finally, ISRR operates an ex-Toledo, Peoria & Western GP40 painted in the Rail America paint scheme. It is the only remaining member of the fleet not in Genesee & Wyoming paint.


The railroad's traffic comes mainly from coal and grain products, including corn and soybeans. The ISRR hauled around 70,000 carloads in 2008.


The Indiana Southern interchanges in Indianapolis with CSX in CSX's Crawford Yard, the Indiana Rail Road in Switz City and Beehunter, Norfolk Southern in Oakland City in Evansville the railroad terminates with a connection at CSX’s (ex-C&EI) Wansford yard, just west of US 41, near the Evansville Regional Airport.


Just south of Indianapolis, the railroad serves transloading facility Kid Glove Services.


The railroad serves industries in Mooresville and a salt unloading facility in Martinsville. A siding between Whitaker and Gosport is regularly used for car storage; as is a small yard in Worthington on the former New York Central trackage.


The railroad supplies coal to power plants in Edwardsport and Petersburg. There are around 2 trains per week supplying the Edwardsport plant with coal and carrying byproducts from the plant.


The railroad also serves a grain elevator in Plainville and the Grain Processing Corporation in Washington.


The Idaho Northern and Pacific Railroad (reporting mark: INPR) is a small railroad in southwestern Idaho and eastern Oregon in the United States. It operates on 120 miles of former Union Pacific branch lines, and is a subsidiary of the Rio Grande Pacific Corp., based in Fort Worth, Texas. Idaho Northern and Pacific's offices are in Emmett, Idaho.


As of 2019, the INPR operated two separate sections of track, one running from La Grande to Elgin, Oregon, connecting at Elgin with another former UP rail line now owned by Wallowa County – which continues to Joseph, Oregon – and the other running from Payette through Emmett and then into the canyon of the North Fork of the Payette River northward to Cascade. This section, considered the most scenic stretch of the INPR, previously continued to the former logging community of McCall, now a lakeside resort town, but that stretch has been abandoned.


Both the Oregon portion and the Payette River line originally were built as logging lines serving lumber mills, but in the last two decades of the 20th century, many of the mills were shuttered due to a decline in logging and lumber processing in much of the Pacific Northwest. As of 2012, the Idaho Northern and Pacific still served Boise Cascade mills in Elgin, Island City, and La Grande, Oregon.


INPR formerly operated an ex-UP spur connecting Boise with the Union Pacific main line at Nampa. However, the Boise Valley Railroad took over operation in 2009, possibly as a result of the post-housing boom recession.


INPR also formerly operated the 85-mile Weiser, Idaho to Rubicon line from 1993 till its abandonment in 1995.


From 1998 until 2015, the INPR operated the Thunder Mountain Line, a tourist railroad between Horseshoe Bend and Cascade. The Thunder Mountain Line offered scenic tours, dinner trains and "river and rail" trips along the Payette River that allowed people to ride a train north and return southward by river raft on the Payette. In 2014 the railroad started the brief Payette River flyer operation using 2 Budd RDC cars purchased from the Wallowa Union Railroad in Oregon; this operation ceased in 2016 as well.


Located in Knoxville, Tennessee, Knoxville Locomotive Works is an affiliate of Gulf & Ohio Railways. Since its establishment in 1998, Knoxville Locomotive Works (KLW) has repowered, refurbished, remanufactured, and/or upgraded over 400 locomotives. Today, KLW offers its own line of green, single-engine, repowered locomotives from 1,000 hp four axle switchers up to 3,200 hp six axle line haul locomotives.


In addition to green locomotives, KLW also offers conventional services, such as locomotive rebuilding and refurbishment services for traditional locomotives. KLW has a field services branch with four service regions (Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, West Coast), and a locomotive leasing and sales division.


The Fulton County Railroad is a privately held short-line railroad that runs from Rochester to Argos, Indiana, where it connects with the Norfolk Southern Railway. It is a switching railroad that originally provided service to only one customer, Wilson Fertilizer and Grain in Rochester, and operates approximately 13 miles of track.


Since February 24, 2011, freight on FC infrastructure is handled by Elkhart and Western Railroad through Trackage rights. In addition to the original customer, it now also serves a scrap yard and occasional other customers.


The Midland Railway was founded in 1915 by George M. Brinson. The railroad had planned to build a line from Savannah to Stevens Crossing, Georgia, USA to connect with the Georgia and Florida Railway. By the start of 1916, the railroad had built from Savannah to Statesboro and later purchased the Savannah, Augusta and Northern Railway to complete the line. In 1922 the railroad was facing bankruptcy and the line from Statesboro to Savannah was abandoned the next year. The remainder of the line was reorganized as the Statesboro Northern Railway in 1924.


The Louisville and Southwestern Railway was a 19th-century railway company in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It operated from 1882 until 1889, when it was incorporated into the Louisville Southern Railroad. It later made up part of the Southern Railway and its former rights-of-way currently form parts of the class-I Norfolk Southern system.


Indiana Hi-Rail Corporation was a railroad which operated lines in the U.S. states of Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. It ceased operations after it was declared bankrupt in 1997. The railroad was known for its extensive use of locomotives built by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO).


The Glendale and Montrose Railway Company (G&M) was an interurban electrified railway in Southern California, in the United States. It was unique among the Los Angeles area railways, as it was among the area's only interurban line never absorbed into the expansive Pacific Electric system.


The railway was built from Glendale to Eagle Rock in 1909 and to Montrose and La Crescenta in April 1913. A joint service was briefly established with the Pacific Electric, allowing cars originating in La Crescenta to run to the Pacific Electric Building and interchange with that company's lines. The service lasted less than a year, from October 1916 to the following September. In February 1924 the Glendale and Montrose trolleys traversed newly electrified Union Pacific (UP) tracks to reach Los Angeles. The city of Glendale contributed funding for the electrification to reduce the impact of steam trains through the town.


The population along the route in the early 1900s was too low to support frequent passenger service. The railway ceased operation at the end of 1930, and the Union Pacific took over the remaining tracks in 1931. A few years later, UP converted the ex-G&M trackage from electric to diesel. Tracks were connected to the Southern Pacific Coast Line in 1938 and freight trains continued to use the line, known as the Glendale branch, until November 1986. The Glendale Avenue segment was abandeoned in 1956. Union Pacific abandoned the last remaining section of the railroad after 1991, and the right-of-way was subdivided and sold off.


One of the electric locomotives of the Glendale & Montrose has been preserved in the collection of the Southern California Railway Museum. G&M No. 22, a 1923 Baldwin-Westinghouse boxcab locomotive, became UP No. E100 after Union Pacific acquired the G&M. In 1942, after UP ceased electric operation on the former G&M tracks, No. E100 was sold to a Union Pacific subsidiary in Washington, the Yakima Valley Transportation Company (YVT). It became YVT No. 297 and continued in use in Yakima for many years. When retired, in 1985, the locomotive was donated to the Orange Empire Railway Museum.


The Groton and Stonington Street Railway was an interurban trolley line that extended from Groton, Connecticut to Westerly, Rhode Island, with a later branch to Old Mystic, Connecticut and an extension to New London. The line operated from 1904 to 1919 and 1923 to 1928, after which it was replaced by buses.


The Groton and Stonington Street Railway was chartered on August 17, 1903, with permission to build two lines. The loop line in Groton was never constructed, but work began on the line from Groton to Stonington in early 1904. The G&S opened from Groton to Mystic on December 19, 1904, to Stonington on April 8, 1905, and finally to the state line at Westerly on May 6, 1905.


The trolley line started at Thames Street in Groton, passing through Poquonnock and Noank, and ending in Mystic. The company was headquartered in Mystic, and the powerhouse was located in between Water Street and the west bank of the Mystic River. The powerhouse is still standing, and has been converted into condominiums. The adjacent carhouse was retrofitted with two additional stories in the 1980s and converted into condominiums as well.


A spur line was built in 1911 that extended to Old Mystic. In 1928, G&S ceased operating, and buses of the Groton-Stonington Traction Company began operating along the route.


The Almanor Railroad was a Class III short-line railroad operating in Northern California, USA. It was owned by Collins Pine Company, a division of The Collins Companies and annually hauled approximately 300 carloads of timber and lumber products generated at the mill. The railroad was named after Lake Almanor, which the railroad ran over (by causeway) and adjacent to.


The railroad ran west from a connection with the BNSF Railway (former Western Pacific) at Clear Creek Junction to Chester, California.


The Almanor Railroad was incorporated on September 15, 1941, and purchased the line from the Grande Ronde Lumber Company; and was discontinued in late 2009.


The railroad line was built before 1931 by the Red River Lumber Company which had a private electric logging railroad with a trestle over the Feather River and ran from Westwood (about east of Clear Creek Junction) to Chester. The portion of the Red River Lumber line between Westwood and Chester was the BNSF mainline from Keddie to Bieber. The BNSF also has trackage rights over the Almanor Railroad.


The Almanor Railroad had one 70-ton GE locomotive built in 1955.


The Fulton Chain Railroad, also known as the "Peg Leg", was a narrow gauge private railroad connecting Moose River to Minnehaha, New York, in the Fulton Chain of Lakes. The line was built in 1888, and ceased running in 1892. The line was eight miles (13 km) long, and had wooden rails, hence the nickname "Peg Leg". It ran only during the summer months to carry vacationers to the Fulton Chain of Lakes.


The Kanawha and Pocahontas Railroad Company was incorporated in West Virginia in 1898 by either a son or the estate of Charles Pratt to reach new coal mining territory on land which was owned and/or leased by Gallego Coal & Land Company, Charles Pratt and Company, and other investors based in New York City.


The line was constructed in 1902 as a narrow gauge railroad and originated at the mainline of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) at what was called Paint Creek Junction along the Kanawha River. It ran along a tributary of the river called Paint Creek to Kingston, crossing the Kanawha-Fayette county line about one mile south of Burnwell.


Represented by attorney (and former West Virginia governor) William A. MacCorkle, industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers, acting on behalf of Charles Pratt and Company, negotiated its lease of the entire line to the C&O. It later came under ownership of the C&O, and was later known as the C&O's Paint Creek Branch.


The Concord and Montreal Railroad was a railroad incorporated in 1889 out of a merger between the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad and the Concord Railroad.


The Boston, Concord and Montreal had previously become the Northern Division of the Boston and Lowell Railroad, following an 1884 leasing agreement. The Boston and Lowell was then leased by the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1887, bringing the BC&M under the Boston and Maine's control. The merger with the Concord Railroad in 1889 led to the Concord and Montreal being under its own, independent control upon its incorporation. However, the railroad was ultimately purchased by the Boston and Maine in 1895.


The Columbia and Cowlitz Railway , is a short-line railroad owned by Patriot Rail Corporation, and is headquartered in Longview, Washington. The railroad serves an route from the Weyerhaeuser Company mill in Longview to the junction just outside the city limits of Kelso. From there, traffic is either switched to the Patriot Woods Railroad, formally known as the Weyerhaeuser Woods Railroad, where it is transported to Weyerhaeuser's Green Mountain Sawmill at Toutle or it is switched to the BNSF/Union Pacific joint main line for movement to either Portland, Oregon, or Seattle, Washington.


The railroad employs thirteen people and hauls around 12,000 carloads a year.


CLC was incorporated on April 9, 1925 and the line was constructed between 1926–1928. The railway was a wholly owned subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Company until its sale in 2010 to Patriot Rails. Patriot also purchased the Weyerhauser Woods Railroad, changing its name to Patriot Woods Railroad. The two railroads connect and work as one railroad with of track.


The railway owns a fleet of 500 freight cars including a mix of boxcars, centerbeam lumber cars, and flat cars. The Railroad utilizes seven locomotives.


The main commodities transported along the rails are newsprint, plywood chips, pulpboard, industrial waste and chemicals. Companies using the railroad services are Weyerhaeuser, Georgia-Pacific, NORPAC, Flexible Foam, Equa-Chlor, PPG Industries, Canexus and Solvay Chemicals.


Founded in 1885, the Covington and Macon Railroad began operations in 1887 between Macon and Hillsboro, Georgia, USA. It eventually stretched , operating from Macon to Athens, Georgia, however it went bankrupt and was sold at public auction in 1891. It was then reorganized as the Macon and Northern Railroad.


The Chicago Freight Car Leasing Company provides railcar leasing and management to companies throughout North America for a variety of commodities, including agricultural & food products; chemical & processed mineral products; metals, ores, aggregates, mineral rock/stone, and petroleum products. Chicago Freight Car Leasing is a subsidiary of Sasser Family Holdings, Inc.. Other related companies under Sasser Family Holdings include Union Leasing, CF Asia Pacific, CFCL Australia, CF Rail Services, and NxGen Rail.


A daughter company, CFCL Australia, owns and leases the largest private fleet of locomotives and wagons in the Australian market. The company was established in response to the privatization of the former state-based railways in that country.


The Covington, Columbus and Black Hills Railroad is an historic narrow gauge railroad that operated in the U.S. state of Nebraska.


Possibly the only narrow gauge revenue railroad in Nebraska, it opened in 1876 and ran on of narrow gauge track in the northeast part of the state from Covington (South Sioux City) to Ponca.


In 1879 it merged to become part of the Sioux City and Nebraska Railroad. It later merged into the Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway which saw the line extended to Wynot.


The Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad is a short line railroad offering service from Tolleston, Indiana to Crestline, Ohio, United States over the former Fort Wayne Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It began operations in 2004 as a division of the Central Railroad of Indianapolis (CERA), under the overall corporate ownership of RailAmerica. CFE operates of rail leased from CSX.


Conrail acquired the line in 1976, and later sold some of it to the Norfolk Southern Railway to relieve that company's ex-Nickel Plate Road main line. CSX Transportation acquired the entire line in the 1999 breakup of Conrail, and began to make improvements, including new crossing signals, paving crossings, and weeding the railroad. After this was complete, signs were posted at each crossing notifying motorists of an increase in train traffic.


In 2004, operations under the Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad name began; from the beginning of operations, the railroad has been owned by RailAmerica.


In 2011 former Norfolk Southern supervisor Joseph (Joe) Parsons was named the General Manager of Chicago, Fort Wayne, & Eastern Railroad headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana.


On July 23, 2012, Genesee & Wyoming Inc. announced that it intended to purchase RailAmerica in a deal valued at $1.39 billion. Approval of the purchase was granted by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board on December 19, 2012, and ownership of the Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern was transferred to the G&W.


Traffic on the line includes grain, lumber products, chemicals, steel, and petroleum. The CFE transported around 39,000 carloads in 2008.


Meridian Southern Railway , in east Mississippi, USA, is a short line freight railroad linking Meridian, and Waynesboro, Mississippi and intermediate stations. The railroad is connected to the national rail network by its connection to the Kansas City Southern Railway at Meridian. The MDS utilizes five General Electric built B23-7 locomotives to move over 7,000 carloads of freight annually.


Originally, this line was part of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad mainline connecting Mobile, Alabama with St. Louis, Missouri. The segment between Waynesboro and Mobile has been abandoned.


The MDS is one of four shortlines (the others being the Owego Harford Railway, the Lehigh Railway, and the Luzerne and Susquehanna Railway), all part of a shortline holding company headquartered in Owego, New York. http://www.ohry.net/


List of defunct railroads of North America


The defunct railroads of North America regrouped several railroads in Canada and the United States. The following is a list of the past railroad companies.


Western & Atlantic Railroad #49 "Texas" is a 4-4-0 "American" type steam locomotive built in 1856 for the Western & Atlantic Railroad by Danforth, Cooke & Co., best known as the principal pursuit engine in the Great Locomotive Chase, chasing the "General" after the latter was stolen by Union saboteurs in an attempt to ruin the Confederate rail system during the American Civil War. The locomotive is preserved at the Atlanta History Center.


The "Texas" was built in October 1856 for the Western & Atlantic Railroad by locomotive manufacturer Danforth, Cooke and Company in Paterson, New Jersey, and subsequently shipped from Paterson to the Port of Savannah, thence delivered via the Georgia Rail Road & Banking Company and Macon & Western Railroad to the W&A headquarters in Atlanta.


The "Texas" provided freight and passenger service on the W&A's main line between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tennessee.


Civil War and the Great Locomotive Chase.


At the onset of the Civil War, the locomotive primarily hauled local freight and cargo without any major incident. However, on April 12, 1862, the "Texas", while pulling a load of 12 cars from Dalton southbound towards Atlanta, was commandeered by William Allen Fuller to chase down spies, led by James J. Andrews, during the "Great Locomotive Chase." Steaming in reverse after jettisoning the railcars, the "Texas" pursued the fleeing "General" over 50 miles before the raiders abandoned their stolen engine two miles north of Ringgold, Georgia. The "Texas"'s engineer, Peter Bracken, towed the abandoned "General" back to Adairsville, Georgia, and then picked up his 12 cars and steamed into Atlanta, well behind schedule, but with good reason.


Following the incident, the "Texas" and nine boxcars were loaned to the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad to haul salt and cargo from the mines at Saltville, Virginia in 1863. While in Virginia, the engine was captured by the U.S. Military Railroad (USMRR). Eventually, as Union forces made their way toward Atlanta, the W&ARR and its 46 other locomotives were captured as well.


The USMRR returned the "Texas", W&ARR, and its other locomotives to the State of Georgia on September 25, 1865. The engine continued to serve the W&ARR during the Reconstruction era, though under several different stewards as the public railroad was steadily privatized. The State of Georgia numbered the W&ARR's engines in 1866, leading to the "Texas"'s designation as number 49.


In 1870, the W&ARR was leased out, for a period of twenty years, to a group of Georgia investors led by former war-time governor Joseph E. Brown. Alongside the W&ARR's other 44 locomotives at the time, the "Texas" was renumbered and renamed - becoming the "Cincinnati", number 12. During the lease period, the engine received a new boiler (1877), was converted to burn coal, and was regauged (1886) as the W&ARR converted its entire locomotive rolling stock to the national standard gauge.


The W&ARR lease was renewed in 1890, though with a different lessee: the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway. The "Texas" remained the "Cincinnati" under the NC&StL and was renumbered 212.


In 1895, the engine was withdrawn from mainline service and stored on a siding in Vinings, Georgia. By 1903, the engine had briefly returned to service on a branch line serving a corn mill in Emerson, Georgia. It served there until its retirement in 1907, at which time it was sent to the W&ARR's yard in Atlanta, where it would await its disposition.


In August 1907, an article in the "Atlanta Constitution" brought to attention the deteriorated state of the locomotive and its historical significance. A fundraising effort began for its preservation. In response, NC&StL president John W. Thomas stated that he was willing to turn the engine to either the State of Georgia or the City of Atlanta, should either be willing to accept it. Accordingly, the Georgia General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing the need to preserve the engine. However, neither the railway nor the state took any physical action to move and/or protect the engine, which thus remained derelict on a siding.


A grassroots campaign led by the "Atlanta Georgian" newspaper and an ad-hoc group (composed of the Atlanta chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Inman Park Students' Club, and the Atlanta Woman's Club) succeeded in securing the locomotive for the City of Atlanta instead. On February 17, 1908, the "Texas" was officially donated to the "Ladies of Atlanta" by the NC&StL. The group, in turn, transferred the engine to the city.


However, despite the "Texas"'s donation, the locomotive remained in the W&A yard. In 1910, Atlanta artist and historian, Wilbur G. Kurtz, began writing articles in the "Atlanta Constitution" advocating preservation of the "Texas." The following year, the engine was moved to Grant Park, though it remained exposed to the elements and funds for its restoration were still lacking.


In 1936, the locomotive, under the guidance of Kurtz, was cosmetically restored to resemble what he believed to be its wartime appearance. The engine's smokestack was replaced with one resembling the balloon design of the Civil War era, its horizontal strap-iron slat cowcatcher was restored, as were the nameplates on the sides of the boiler. The basement in which the engine was placed, while adequate to protect the engine, had been criticized for its small size which made viewing the engine difficult. As with the "General", several proposals had been made as to where the "Texas" should be displayed, including placing it on display in the Atlanta Union Station, at the site of present-day Underground Atlanta, at Stone Mountain Park, among others - none of which materialized.


By the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was growing concern about the condition of the panoramic painting of the Battle of Atlanta (the Atlanta Cyclorama), which had suffered from storm damage as well as long periods of neglect. In 1972, the City of Atlanta developed plans to renovate the Cyclorama building, including a complete restoration of the painting as well as an enlarged display area for the "Texas". However, the renovation did not begin until 1979, and was completed in 1982.


After the 2008 restoration of the Gettysburg Cyclorama, focus shifted once more to the Atlanta Cyclorama and its deteriorated condition, prompting the City of Atlanta to explore another restoration and potential relocation of the painting. Ultimately, a decision was made to relocate and restore the painting, with a transfer ultimately including the "Texas" locomotive and other artifacts at the Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum as well.


Around this time, the cities of Marietta, Kennesaw, as well as the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth, Georgia expressed interest in acquiring the locomotive. However, city officials in Atlanta determined the engine should remain preserved in tandem with the painting.


In July 2014, the city of Atlanta announced that the Cyclorama collection, including the painting, locomotive, and other artifacts were to be relocated to the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead. The "Texas" was removed from the Cyclorama building in December 2015, marking the first time the "Texas" has been removed from the building since its 1981 remodeling. The engine received a cosmetic restoration performed at the North Carolina Transportation Museum by a private contractor, Steam Operations Corporation, who had previously restored the Norfolk and Western Railway no. 611 to operation at that facility, before being placed in the expanded history center.


126 and the above mentioned Norfolk and Western no. 611.


The "Texas" was scheduled to begin its two-day move to the Atlanta History Center on May 3, 2017, but a logistical issue delayed the beginning of the move from North Carolina until May 4. It arrived on May 5. The Atlanta History Center's new Atlanta railroads exhibit, featuring the locomotive, opened on November 17, 2018. The Cyclorama painting and related exhibits opened to the public in spring 2019.


Western & Atlantic Railroad #3 "General" is a 4-4-0 "American" type steam locomotive built in 1855 by the Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor in Paterson, New Jersey for the Western & Atlantic Railroad, best known as the engine stolen by Union spies in the Great Locomotive Chase, an attempt to cripple the Confederate rail network during the American Civil War. Today, the locomotive is preserved at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw, Georgia, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


Built in 1855 by Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor in Paterson, New Jersey, "The General" provided freight and passenger service between Atlanta, Georgia, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, before the Civil War on the Western and Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia and later, the Western and Atlantic Railroad Company.


During the Civil War on April 12, 1862, "The General" was commandeered by Northerners led by James J. Andrews at Big Shanty (now Kennesaw, Georgia), and abandoned north of Ringgold, after being pursued by William Allen Fuller and the "Texas". Low on water and wood, the "General" eventually lost steam pressure and speed, and slowed to a halt two miles north of Ringgold, where Andrews and his raiders abandoned the locomotive and tried to flee.


In 1864, the Battle of Atlanta had forced the withdrawal of General John Bell Hood's forces from the city. Hood ordered the ordnance depot destroyed as he left Atlanta on September 1, 1864. To this end, the General was severely damaged by being run into boxcars of ammunition and the Missouri locomotive. This was done deliberately so as to render the engine unusable for the approaching Union forces.


It had been speculated by some that, after the "General" had been damaged, the invading Union army restored the engine and operated it. However, many historians believe that the engine was left untouched for the remainder of the war. The Union army had based its repair shops in Nashville, and there is no evidence to suggest the engine was moved there. The United States Military Railroad Service had many new or like-new engines, so they had no need to restore captured ones such as the "General". The USMRR had often left the damaged equipment of a captured railroad undisturbed, and its records, having listed the "General" as "captured and returned," further suggest such was the case of the "General".


After the war ended, the "General" was repaired and continued service on the Western and Atlantic. In the 1870s, the "General" was completely rebuilt, it had received a new pilot, boiler, and other components. Most notably, its three dome configuration was reduced to two domes, and its Radley-Hunter style balloon stack was replaced with a diamond stack, as the engine had been converted to burn coal. Indeed, the rebuilt engine had little resemblance to its original form.


Before the Civil War, most railways in the south, including the W&A, did not give their engines numbers. Rather, they were simply named, such as the "General". When the railroad began numbering engines after the war, the "General" was the 39th engine to be acquired by the road, and was numbered accordingly. Locomotives came and went as years progressed, and by 1880, a renumbering was necessary. At this time, the "General" was given the number "3," being the third oldest engine that the railroad had at the time. The engine continues to carry this number today.


In the mid-1880s, the Atlanta and Florida Railroad began construction. During this time, the W&A had a locomotive surplus after buying several more modern engines, so they leased the "General" to the A&F from 1887 to 1888 to assist in construction.


The locomotive was originally built to the southern states standard rail gauge of . After a change to the northern states gauge was mandated by June 1, 1886, "The General" was converted to be compatible with the U.S. Standard Gauge of .


In 1901, the "General" was placed on display in the Chattanooga Union Depot. There, it remained on display for nearly fifty years, only being removed for short periods for exhibitions. In particular, the engine was taken to Baltimore in 1927 to participate in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's "Fair of the Iron Horse", then in 1933 to Chicago's "Century of Progress" Exhibition, the 1939 New York World's Fair, and finally, the Chicago Railroad Fair in 1948.


The state of Georgia's interest in the "General" soon raised tensions with the city of Chattanooga, where the "General" was displayed. In 1967, the city of Kennesaw, where the engine had been stolen in 1862, requested to have the engine attend a fundraiser held by the Big Shanty Historical Society. The "General" was on its way there, when it was stopped by a group led by Chattanooga's mayor, Ralph H. Kelley. He believed the engine belonged to the city, and a lawsuit had been filed against the L&N concerning custody of the engine.


After the L&N won the legal dispute concerning the engine's custody in 1970, they brought the engine to Atlanta via the former Atlanta, Knoxville and Northern Railway line from Knoxville through Etowah, to Marietta, bypassing Chattanooga. In February 1972, a ceremony was held in Atlanta where L&N president Kendall formally presented the "General" to then state governor (and later President of the United States) Jimmy Carter. Afterwards, the engine was moved to Kennesaw where a museum site was prepared. On April 12, 1972, the Big Shanty Museum (later known as the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History) opened, and the "General" remained on display there since.


The Pine series was a fleet of sleeping cars built by Pullman-Standard in 1953. The cars were built according to Pullman plan 4183; each contained six sections, six roomettes and four double bedrooms (colloquially "6-6-4"). The cars were originally owned by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N), the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad (C&EI), and the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway (NC&StL).


The Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N) ordered 22 of the cars in 1951, primarily to replace the pre-World War II heavyweight cars on the "Pan American", "Humming Bird", and "Georgian". Each car cost $163,000. Additional orders were placed by the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad (C&EI) (four cars) and Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway (NC&StL) (three cars). Both railroads interoperated with the L&N. Each of the sleeping cars had a name ending in "Pine" such as "Georgia Pine" or "Whispering Pine", reflecting the road's Southern heritage. The cars began entering service in 1953, and also saw service on such trains as the "Gulf Wind", "Flamingo", and "Azalean".


The NC&StL's three cars became part of the L&N's fleet in August 1957 on the merger of the two railroads. All of the cars were retired in 1971 on the formation of Amtrak and the end of passenger service on the L&N. Several later saw service on the original Auto-Train.


All 29 cars were part of Pullman Lot 6909:


Several Pine series sleeping cars are known to exist, including at least one in operating condition:


The Troy and New England Railway Company was an electric trolley that operated between Averill Park and Albia (in Troy, New York). Riders could pick up the trolley from Troy's city trolley. It operated around 1895 to 1925. James K. Averill had this line established, with the intention to extending the route to Pittsfield, Massachusetts.


Its route essentially paralleled the Wynantskill Creek and then West Sand Lake Road from Albia to Sand Lake. There were stops at several places, including Brookside Avenue, Sand Lake Road at Steamview Lane, and at Sagendorf Lane.


The trolley cars were open sided in the summer and windowed side cars were used during the winter months. Flatcars and box cars were used to transport freight. The cars were powered by an overhead wire that connected to electric motors within the trolley. Trolleys ran from 5:30 in the morning until midnight. Children took the trolley to get to school. It is likely that the trolley stopped offering service when automobiles became the common method for transportation.


Starting in 1902, the trolley ran on coal-fired steam electricity generated at a local power plant. Troy and New England Railway was purchased by United Traction Company in 1910. By 1916, Delaware and Hudson Company had a controlling interest in United Traction Company and the Troy and New England Railway.


The New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway was a constituent element of the Missouri-Pacific Railroad.


H.E. Salzberg Company was a scrap dealer and operator of a group of shortline railroads and bus lines throughout the eastern United States. Headquartered in New York City, the company was primarily in the business of dismantling abandoned railroads and processing the valuable steel rails for scrap. The company was founded by Harry Salzberg in the 1890s. After his death 1948 his son Murray M. Salzberg became the head of the company. Aside from operating the scrap company and the shortline railroads, Salzberg was also owner of Queens Transit Corporation and Steinway Transit Corporation in Queens, New York, and was also on the board of the reorganized Central Railroad of New Jersey beginning in 1979.


H. E. Salzberg & Company, Inc. incorporated under the laws of the State of New York in 1918.


Each year, Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management presents the Salzberg Medallion, a prestigious award in the transportation and supply chain management industry. The award was established in 1949 by Murray Salzberg to honor his father's transportation career.


A catcher pouch was a mail bag used by Railway Post Offices of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Its use was limited to exchanges onto moving trains. The specially constructed catcher pouch was grabbed by the catcher mechanism in the passing railway car and the catcher pouch would release from the holding rings on the mail crane. This technique was known as "mail on the fly". Starting in the 1870s the use of this technique of the Railway Mail Service was an important issue in the United States. It was a popular technique and the backbone of the United States Postal Service through the 1930s.


When the mail clerk of the Railway Post Office car grabbed the catcher pouch on the mail crane he would at the same time kick out the outgoing mail for delivery to that village. The idea behind the catcher pouch was that there could be an exchange of mail to villages too small to justify the train stopping. The complete transfer technique (tossing out the outgoing mail a second before grabbing the catcher pouch) required much skill and potentially could cause harm or even death for those not trained properly. Another reason why the catcher pouch and mail crane were developed is so the train did not have to slow down just for the exchange of mail (Old School method).


The mail on-the-fly was not a smooth operating technique. One problem with the technique was that the postal clerk had to pay close attention when he raised the train's catcher arm. If it was raised too early there was a chance of hitting and destroying switch targets, telegraph poles, and railway semaphore signals, as well as the train's mail catcher arm. If the clerk was too late in raising the train's catcher arm, he might miss the catcher pouch altogether.


In the United Kingdom as early as 1855 an apparatus for snatching mailbags on-the-fly and delivering mail without stopping a train was in use at Slough, England. It continued in service until 1939.


A mail hook is an installation alongside a railroad where a catcher pouch can be hung, to be picked up by a passing train without the train having to stop.


Catcher pouches could not be used for any other purpose. The catcher pouch was to be used only for letters (sometimes newspapers were an exception). The maximum weight of a filled catcher pouch was to be 50 pounds. The catcher pouch was to be locked and placed upside down on the mail crane no sooner than 10 minutes before the scheduled arrival of the Mail Train. The catcher pouch was to be tied in the middle before it was to be transferred. If a small amount of mail, it should be put in the lower half below the tie strap. If a large amount of mail, it should be divided equally between the upper half and the lower half of the catcher pouch.


The catcher pouch is a specialized form of sack made of an extra tough canvas material and had metal rings on each end so they could attach to the arm of a railway mail bag crane. The body of the pouch was strengthened by leather bindings both at the top and bottom. A Registered Mail pouch came also with a leather bottom and had a special postal lock to secure the contents. A leather strap was secured around the center of the canvas body of the catcher pouch when it was readied to be snatched by a passing train's mail hook.


Rail transportation in the United States consists primarily of freight shipments, with a well integrated network of standard gauge private freight railroads extending into Canada and Mexico. Passenger service is mainly mass transit and commuter rail in major cities. Intercity passenger service, once a large and vital part of the nation's passenger transportation network, plays a limited role as compared to transportation patterns in many other countries. The United States has the largest rail transport network size of any country in the world.


A railroad was reportedly used in the construction of the French Royal Army fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia in 1720. Between 1762 and 1764, at the close of the French and Indian War, a gravity railroad (mechanized tramway) (Montresor's Tramway) was built by British Army engineers up the steep riverside terrain near the Niagara River waterfall's escarpment at the Niagara Portage (which the local Senecas called "Crawl on All Fours.") in Lewiston, New York.


State governments granted charters that created the business corporation and gave a limited right of eminent domain, allowing the railroad to buy needed land, even if the owner objected.


The first purpose-built common carrier railroad in the northeast was the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad; incorporated in 1826, it began operating in August 1831. Soon, a second passenger line, the Saratoga & Schenectady Railroad, started service in June 1832.


In 1835 the B&O completed a branch from Baltimore southward to Washington, D.C. The Boston & Providence Railroad was incorporated in 1831 to build a railroad between Boston, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island; the road was completed in 1835 with the completion of the Canton Viaduct in Canton, Massachusetts.


Numerous short lines were built, especially in the south, to provide connections to the river systems and the river boats common to the era. In Louisiana, the Pontchartrain Rail-Road, a route connecting the Mississippi River with Lake Pontchartrain at New Orleans was completed in 1831 and provided over a century of operation. Completed in 1830, the Tuscumbia, Courtland & Decatur Railroad became the first railroad constructed west of the Appalachian Mountains; it connected the two Alabama cities of Decatur and Tuscumbia.


Soon, other roads that would themselves be purchased or merged into larger entities, formed. The Camden & Amboy Railroad (C&A), the first railroad built in New Jersey, completed its route between its namesake cities in 1834. The C&A ran successfully for decades connecting New York City to the Delaware valley, and would eventually become part of the Pennsylvania Railroad.


By 1850, over of railroad lines had been built. The B&O's westward route reached the Ohio River in 1852, the first eastern seaboard railroad to do so. Railroad companies in the North and Midwest constructed networks that linked nearly every major city by 1860.


Much of the original roadbed is still in use today and owned by UP, which is descended from both of the original railroads.


Many Canadian and U.S. railroads originally used various broad gauges, but most were converted to by 1886, when the conversion of much of the southern rail network from gauge took place. This and the standardization of couplings and air brakes enabled the pooling and interchange of locomotives and rolling stock.


The railroad had its largest impact on the American transportation system during the second half of the 19th century. The standard historical interpretation holds that the railroads were central to the development of a national market in the United States and served as a model of how to organize, finance and manage a large corporation, along with allowing growth of the American population outside of the eastern regions.


Fogel concludes that railroads were important but not "essential" to late 19th century growth in the U.S. in the sense that a possible alternative existed even if it was never tried. Fogel focuses on the "social saving" created by railroads, which he defines as the difference between the actual level of national income in 1890 and the theoretical level of national income if transportation somehow existed in the most efficient way possible to the absence of the railroad. He found that without the railroad, America's gross national product (GNP) would have been 7.2% less in 1890. While the largest contribution to GNP growth made by any single innovation before 1900, this percentage only represents 2–3 years of GNP growth.


Fishlow estimates that the railroad's social savings—or what he terms "direct benefits"—were higher than those calculated by Fogel. Fishlow's research may indicate that the development of railroads significantly influenced real income in the United States. Instead of Fogel's term "social saving", Fishlow uses the term "direct benefits" to describe the difference between the actual level of national income in 1859 and the theoretical level of income using the least expensive, but existing alternative means. Fishlow calculated the social savings in 1859 at 4 percent of GNP and in 1890 at 15 percent of GNP—higher than Fogel's estimate of 7.2% in 1890.


Industrialists such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould became wealthy through railroad ownerships, as large railroad companies such as the New York Central, Grand Trunk Railway and the Southern Pacific spanned several states. In response to monopolistic practices (such as price fixing) and other excesses of some railroads and their owners, Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1887. The ICC indirectly controlled the business activities of the railroads through issuance of extensive regulations. Congress also enacted antitrust legislation to prevent railroad monopolies, beginning with the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890.


As early as the 1930s, automobile travel had begun to cut into the rail passenger market, somewhat reducing economies of scale, but it was the development of the Interstate Highway System and of commercial aviation in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as increasingly restrictive regulation, that dealt the most damaging blows to rail transportation, both passenger and freight. General Motors and others were convicted of running the streetcar industry into the ground purposefully in what is referred to as the Great American Streetcar Scandal. There was little point in operating passenger trains to advertise freight service when those who made decisions about freight shipping traveled by car and by air, and when the railroads' chief competitors for that market were interstate trucking companies.


Freight transportation continued to labor under regulations developed when rail transport had a monopoly on intercity traffic, and railroads only competed with one another. An entire generation of rail managers had been trained to operate under this regulatory regime. Labor unions and their work rules were likewise a formidable barrier to change. Overregulation, management and unions formed an "iron triangle" of stagnation, frustrating the efforts of leaders such as the New York Central's . In particular, the dense rail network in the Northeastern U.S. was in need of radical pruning and consolidation. A spectacularly unsuccessful beginning was the 1968 formation and subsequent bankruptcy of the Penn Central, barely two years later.


Historically, on routes where a single railroad has had an undisputed monopoly, passenger service was as spartan and as expensive as the market and ICC regulation would bear, since such railroads had no need to advertise their freight services. However, on routes where two or three railroads were in direct competition with each other for freight business, such railroads would spare no expense to make their passenger trains as fast, luxurious, and affordable as possible, as it was considered to be the most effective way of advertising their profitable freight services.


The National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) was formed in 1967 to lobby for the continuation of passenger trains. Its lobbying efforts were hampered somewhat by Democratic opposition to any sort of rail subsidies to the privately owned railroads, and Republican opposition to nationalization of the railroad industry. The proponents were aided by the fact that few in the federal government wanted to be held responsible for the seemingly inevitable extinction of the passenger train, which most regarded as tantamount to political suicide. The urgent need to solve the passenger train disaster was heightened by the bankruptcy filing of the Penn Central, the dominant railroad in the Northeast U.S., on June 21, 1970.


Under the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, Congress created the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (NRPC) to subsidize and oversee the operation of intercity passenger trains. The Act provided that


The original working brand name for NRPC was "Railpax", which eventually became "Amtrak". At the time, many Washington insiders viewed the corporation as a face-saving way to give passenger trains the one "last hurrah" demanded by the public, but expected that the NRPC would quietly disappear in a few years as public interest waned. However, while Amtrak's political and financial support have often been shaky, popular and political support for Amtrak has allowed it to survive into the 21st century.


Similarly, to preserve a declining freight rail industry, Congress passed the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 (sometimes called the "3R Act"). The act was an attempt to salvage viable freight operations from the bankrupt Penn Central and other lines in the northeast, mid-Atlantic and Midwestern regions. The law created the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail), a government-owned corporation, which began operations in 1976. Another law, the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 (the "4R Act"), provided more specifics for the Conrail acquisitions and set the stage for more comprehensive deregulation of the railroad industry. Portions of the Penn Central, Erie Lackawanna, Reading Railroad, Ann Arbor Railroad, Central Railroad of New Jersey, Lehigh Valley, and Lehigh and Hudson River were merged into Conrail.


The freight industry continued its decline until Congress passed the Staggers Rail Act in 1980, which largely deregulated the rail industry. Since then, U.S. freight railroads have reorganized, discontinued their lightly used routes and returned to profitability.


Freight railroads play an important role in the U.S. economy, especially for moving imports and exports using containers, and for shipments of coal and oil. According to the British news magazine "The Economist," "They are universally recognised in the industry as the best in the world." Productivity rose 172% between 1981 and 2000, while rates decreased by 55% (after accounting for inflation). Rail's share of the American freight market rose to 43%, the highest for any rich country.


U.S. freight railroads are separated into three classes, set by the Surface Transportation Board, based on annual revenues:


In 2013, the U.S. moved more oil out of North Dakota by rail than by the Trans-Alaska pipeline. This trend—tenfold in two years and 40-fold in five years—is forecast to increase.


There are four different classes of freight railroads: Class I, regional, local line haul, and switching & terminal. Class I railroads are defined as those with revenue of at least $346.8 million in 2006. They comprise just one percent of the number of freight railroads, but account for 67 percent of the industry's mileage, 90 percent of its employees, and 93 percent of its freight revenue.


A regional railroad is a line haul railroad with at least and/or revenue between $40 million and the Class I threshold. There were 33 regional railroads in 2006. Most have between 75 and 500 employees.


Local line haul railroads operate less than and earn less than $40 million per year (most earn less than $5 million per year). In 2006, there were 323 local line haul railroads. They generally perform point-to-point service over short distances.


Switching and terminal (S&T) carriers are railroads that primarily provide switching and/or terminal services, regardless of revenue. They perform pick up and delivery services within a certain area.


U.S. freight railroads operate in a highly competitive marketplace. In 2011, within the U.S., railroads carried 39.9% of freight by ton-mile, followed by trucks (33.4%), oil pipelines (14.3%), barges (12%) and air (0.3%). However, railroads' revenue share has been slowly falling for decades, a reflection of the intensity of the competition they face and of the large rate reductions railroads have passed through to their customers over the years.


Prior to Amtrak's creation in 1970, intercity passenger rail service in the U.S. was provided by the same companies that provided freight service. When Amtrak was formed, in return for government permission to exit the passenger rail business, freight railroads donated passenger equipment to Amtrak and helped it get started with a capital infusion of some $200 million.


The vast majority of the 22,000 or so miles over which Amtrak operates are actually owned by freight railroads. By law, freight railroads must grant Amtrak access to their track upon request. In return, Amtrak pays fees to freight railroads to cover the incremental costs of Amtrak's use of freight railroad tracks.


The basic design of a passenger car was standardized by 1870. By 1900, the main car types were: baggage, coach, combine, diner, dome car, lounge, observation, private, Pullman, railroad post office (RPO) and sleeper.


19th century: First passenger cars and early development.


The first passenger cars resembled stagecoaches. They were short, often less than long, tall and rode on a single pair of axles.


American mail cars first appeared in the 1860s and at first followed English design. They had a hook that would catch the mailbag in its crook.


As locomotive technology progressed in the mid-19th century, trains grew in length and weight. Passenger cars grew along with them, first getting longer with the addition of a second truck (one at each end), and wider as their suspensions improved. Cars built for European use featured side door compartments, while American car design favored a single pair of doors at one end of the car in the car's vestibule; compartmentized cars on American railroads featured a long hallway with doors from the hall to the compartments.


One possible reason for this difference in design principles between American and European carbuilding practice could be the average distance between stations on the two continents. While most European railroads connected towns and villages that were still very closely spaced, American railroads had to travel over much greater distances to reach their destinations. Building passenger cars with a long passageway through the length of the car allowed the passengers easy access to the restroom, among other things, on longer journeys.


Dining cars first appeared in the late 1870s and into the 1880s. Until this time, the common practice was to stop for meals at restaurants along the way (which led to the rise of Fred Harvey's chain of Harvey House restaurants in America). At first, the dining car was simply a place to serve meals that were picked up en route, but they soon evolved to include galleys in which the meals were prepared.


By the 1920s, passenger cars on the larger standard gauge railroads were normally between long. The cars of this time were still quite ornate, many of them being built by experienced coach makers and skilled carpenters.


With the 1930s came the widespread use of stainless steel for car bodies. The typical passenger car was now much lighter than its "heavyweight" wood cousins of old. The new "lightweight" and streamlined cars carried passengers in speed and comfort to an extent that had not been experienced to date. Aluminum and Cor-ten were also used in lightweight car construction, but stainless steel was the preferred material for car bodies. It is not the lightest of materials, nor is it the least expensive, but stainless steel cars could be, and often were, left unpainted except for the car's reporting marks that were required by law.


By the end of the 1930s, railroads and car builders were debuting car body and interior styles that could only be dreamed of before. In 1937, the Pullman Company delivered the first cars equipped with roomettes—that is, the car's interior was sectioned off into compartments, much like the coaches that were still in widespread use across Europe. Pullman's roomettes, however, were designed with the single traveler in mind. The roomette featured a large picture window, a privacy door, a single fold-away bed, a sink and small toilet. The roomette's floor space was barely larger than the space taken up by the bed, but it allowed the traveler to ride in luxury compared to the multilevel semiprivate berths of old.


Now that passenger cars were lighter, they were able to carry heavier loads, but the size of the average passenger load that rode in them didn't increase to match the cars' new capacities. The average passenger car couldn't get any wider or longer due to side clearances along the railroad lines, but they generally could get taller because they were still shorter than many freight cars and locomotives. As a result, the railroads soon began building and buying dome and bilevel cars to carry more passengers.


Carbody styles have generally remained consistent since the middle of the 20th century. While new car types have not made much of an impact, the existing car types have been further enhanced with new technology.


Starting in the 1950s, the passenger travel market declined in North America, though there was growth in commuter rail. The higher clearances in North America enabled bi-level commuter coaches that could hold more passengers. These cars started to become common in the United States in the 1960s.


While intercity passenger rail travel declined in the United States during the 1950s, ridership continued to increase in Europe during that time. With the increase came newer technology on existing and new equipment. The Spanish company Talgo began experimenting in the 1940s with technology that would enable the axles to steer into a curve, allowing the train to move around the curve at a higher speed. The steering axles evolved into mechanisms that would also tilt the passenger car as it entered a curve to counter the centrifugal force experienced by the train, further increasing speeds on existing track. Today, tilting passenger trains are commonplace. Talgo's trains are used on some short and medium distance routes such as Amtrak Cascades from Eugene, Oregon, to Vancouver, British Columbia.


In August 2016, the Department of Transportation approved the largest loan in the department's history, $2.45 billion to upgrade the passenger train service in the Northeast region. The $2.45 billion will be used to purchase 28 new train sets for the high-speed Acela train between Washington through Philadelphia, New York and into Boston. The money will also be used build new stations and platforms. The money will also be used to rehabilitate railroad tracks and upgrade four stations, including Washington's Union Station and Baltimore's Penn Station.


There is currently only one operating high speed line in the US, Amtrak's Acela Express between Washington, DC, and Boston. It currently has a maximum speed of , and only in some sections between Boston and Providence, RI, soon to be after introduction of new Avelia Liberty trains, eventually to be upgraded to over some sections. The state of California is constructing its own HSR system, California High-Speed Rail, constructed to standards in some places. The first section in the Central Valley is due to open around 2027.