Are there any tourist railroads that also haul freight commercially for revenue?
I believe roaring camp railroad in felton moves lumber around the area around santa cruz.
Kiski Junction Ry. in Pennsylvania is a freight hauler.
I believe the Great Smokey Mountian Railroad hauls some feed to a chicken farm or something like that.
I believe Strasburg RR still occasionally takes some freight cars back and forth to the interchange on the old Pennsy. And I believe East Troy Electric RR still has one customer receiving freight, a hardware store IIRC.
Wilmington & Western in Delaware serves a brick dealer. It always causes a stir when they come up to Landenburg Jct. with their steamer, to pick up thier cars and spot them at the brick dealer.
Nick
See ALASKA RAILROAD; the Everything RR. Tourist, passenger and freight. I spent several weeks there last summer and will be returning this year as well. The Alaska basically runs between Anchorage and Fairbanks, with a couple of secondary branches.
JWM
The Oil Creek & Titusville in Pennsylvania does. I believe they interchange with the Western New York & Pennsylvania RR.
Tom
the old SP track between Austin TX and Burnet TX sees an interesting mix of freight and passenger. The tracks and ROW are owned by Capital Metro which is in the process of starting commuter rail on the Leander - Austin portion of the line. Austin & Northwest Railroad has the freight hauling contract over the entire line. Lastly, there is tourist service over much of the line on weekends. Currently pulled by diesel but with an SP steamer in the last phases of a rebuild.
dd
Doesn’t the Santa Fe Southern between Santa Fe NM and Lamy NM not only haul freight, but does so on their tourist passenger trains, making it a genuine mixed train daily.
i read on another topic that the WGN actually hauls a small amount of freight. though they’re mostly for tourism
There is a tourist railroad out of French Lick Indiana that hauls some freight.
Good question.
Gabe
I was in North Freedom WI a couple of years ago and there was talk of extending the line to a quarry just past the end of track, to get some freight traffic. Not sure if it ever happend or not.
Bert
Typically, it is the other way around. There are many short lines that haul passengers in addition to freight. Perhaps it is an insider thing, but if you measure freight against passenger revenues you will find that in all but the smallest lines freight revenues far outweigh passenger.
LC
The Tennessee Valley Railroad in Chattanooga (home of SOU 4501 among others) has one freight customer, a smelting operation. Presumably they haul the cars a couple of miles to and from NS.
A few years ago when I rode some equipment at the Fox Valley Railroad Museum in South Elgin, Ill. the conductor announced at the beginning of our ride that the Museum was still in business to haul freight. Of course, “… to haul freight …” to where (?), I don’t know.
In the Museum’s early years, they were the weekend guests of the tiny Aurora, Elgin, and Fox River Electric railroad, a diesel powered freight hauler that ran between a connection with the I.C.G. at Coleman, Ill. and the City of South Elgin. After the Illinois State Hospital converted its heating plant from southern Illinois coal to natural gas, the A.E.& F.R. lost its last customer, so it gave up the ghost and sold the trackage to the Museum. After the sale was completed the museum kept the connection to the I.C.G./ C.C.P. at Coleman; but, today I’m not at all sure that this connection is still in place. Last summer when I had a chance to ride the Museum’s equipment again, no mention was made of their being open to handling any carload freight business.
Georgia Northeastern hauls some freight for extra revenue.
Most of the interchange track has been taken up from the CN end.
Never happened and probably never will. The only reason I would think that tracks would ever be put back to that quarry would be just for the tourist trains to run to, as I highly doubt there is enough quarriable (if that’s an adjective) rock back there to make it worth it.
Some people in the Orginization at North Freedom thought that Mid Contient should have formed a freight only company as an aside and gone after the operating contract on the former CNW line from Madison to Reedsburg, Wisconsin. There wasn’t enough support for it though and so the line ended up being leased to the Wisconsin and Southern Railroad instead.
Noah
There is a sand/gravel pit along the Adirondack RR’s otherwise exclusively tourist/passenger line, but it is serviced by the Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern. Otherwise the only freight cars on the line have to do with MOW.