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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.