I have been trying to get answer for yeears to this question. What is the largest city in the lower 48 States not provided direct service by a freight railroad?
Good question–how would a freight railroad provide indirect service?
Intermodel…
Is the Phoenix, AZ branch still active?
But seriously, I suspect that you’d have to get pretty far down in size to find an urban center that doesn’t have rail service. I suspect that the answer will be a suburban community. Communities near me without any rail service include Oak Brook and Darien.
Another possibility would be some of the fast-growing cities in Arizona, for whom railroads (primarily in the form of transit systems) will have to be re-invented.
One thing that should be stipulated: are we talking about cities that have industries requiring rail service, or merely cities through which a freight line passes?
Let me clarify the question with an example: Keene, NH was once very well served by the Boston and Maine, but no longer. It is a small city with no direct freight service left.
Please further define direct…main line, secondary line, branch line, etc., float barge count? Intermodal drag? If so, NYC’s Manhatten Island or Borough of Manhatten, does not have direct freight service!
Allow me to clarify my question is this way: What is the largest urban area in the lower 48 States that has no common carrier service provided within 25 miles? Does this make my question more specific?
I would say that if a railroad, be it class 1, short line or what have you, can spot a car on a spur or other track for unloading, that would be DIRECT service. Intermodal transloaded at another city would be indirect.
Interesting question, but I don’t have the answer.
Doug
Phoenix is thriving - ask Diningcar. (the old SP passenger main is severed, but UP is still there and the ATSF Peavine thrives…not sure how much Arizona & California brings in at Mathie anymore that eventually gets pulled into town)
Does the Vernal, UTAH project fit into this conversation somewhere? (never had a railroad) or the Marysville, UT [ Six County] project fit in?
Thanks for the responses. I agree. There is no real answer to my question. If I had asked what is the largest cities without intercity rail passenger service, then the answer is is straightforward: Las Vegas and Phoenix.
I have a second question that has bugged for many years. Only to answer this question I need to connect with someone who has a detailed knowledge of the former Dover-Foxcroft branch of the Maine Central Railroad. Anyone out there?
I always heard that the largest city/metro area in the US with no rail service at all was Farmington, New Mexico. (Population around 44,000).
It lost its rail service when the Rio Grande abandoned its narrow guage circa 1968.
I’d say every large city in the US is served by freight in some capacity, with the possible exception of Hawaii. What would be more likely is what is the largest city in the 48 states that doesn’t have passanger rail service by Amtrak or commuter rail?
As for Amtrak, In Ohio Columbus,the 15th largest city in the U.S with almost 800,000 people in the city and 1,800,000 in the metro area And Dayton with over 150,000 in the city and about 1,500,000 in the metro area are both large cities without Amtrak that I can name of the top of my head. I looked at some maps and cannot really find anymajor cities without atleast freight rail service.
Carson City, NV (pop. 53,000) is 30 miles from the UP in Sparks. This would also make it the only state capitol in the lower 48 without railroad service, although they appear to have quite a railroad museum:
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=39.14831&lon=-119.768495&z=18.4&r=0&src=msa
Des Moines, IA does not have any main lines going through, but is served by a few railroads. Amtrak currently does not serve it, but the California Zephr does make a stop about an hour away.
Proving that stupid location and public policy transportation decisions are not confined to the modern ages, State College, Pennsylvania - the home of the Pennsylvania State University, better known as Penn State or PSU, the “Nittany Lions” - was located at a town that was and is a long ways from anywhere significant in the rail world - at least about 25 miles from the PRR’s main line through Tyrone. The average population of State College is about 38,000, plus about 40,000 students. The SMSA (= Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area) consists of all of surrounding Centre County, which is about 140,000. But with 80,000 or so fans on Penn State home football weekends, State College becomes the 3rd largest city in Pennsylvania, for a few hours at least.
But State College hasn’t had direct rail service for many years. It used to be near the end of the Bellefonte Central Railroad, which ran from its namesake town southwest through State College to end just beyond at University Park. That line was only a branch from a branch, and was abandoned many years ago. Although the tail end of a former PRR branch runs just to the northeast of State College - another branch from Bellefonte to the southeast, and then to the southwest - that line ends at Lemont. Although Lemont is only about 3 miles northeast of State College “as the crow eagle (?) flies”, it seems a long ways away from the standpoint of topography. Even at Bellefonte, it still had a few miles to go to Milesburg and the PRR’s Tyrone - Lock Haven “Bald Eagle” branch. Also, that line was recently operated mainly by the Bellefonte Historical Railroad, and maybe occasionally by the underlying shortline operator - Nittany & Bald Eagle (NBER) - that runs the line for SEDA-COG, which took over ownership after ConRail spun off this network of branch lines. This is all pretty complicated to explain
Des Moines has the former Rock Island “Spine Line” now owned by the UP and very much a mainline.
Another city is Annapolis, MD also a state capital and without and rail service. I was surprised that it has only about 37,000 people.
Annapolis, Md. MAY qualify as the largest state capital with no rails of any kind.
As another potential nomination for the original question, I just took a high-speed flip through my 2003 World Almanac’s list of 100 largest US cities, and the only one on that list that jumps out as having no rail service of any kind is the rather obvious no-brainer of Honolulu, Hawaii.
As for another entry, here’s a possibility: Columbia, Maryland is officially an unincorporated metropolitan area between Baltimore and Washington, DC with a census population of 97,200. The only rail service is the stub end of a CSX industrial park branch that passes under I-95 in the southeastern corner of the city, and I believe nothing has moved over that branch into “Columbia” proper in several years–trees are growing up through the line in several spots.
Anyone care to try and beat that?
Here is one…
The city of Norwich, New York.
Once an actual “Railroad town”…served by two systems, the DL&W and the O&W.
The O&W had a major yard and shop facilty right in Norwich…big roundhouse, big shop buildings…
The O&W tracks have been gone for 50 years now, but the DL&W line survived, going into EL, then Conrail, then Susquehanna…Today it is known as the Susquehanna’s “Utica Branch”…running between Binghamton and Utica, NY.
A flood took out much of the line in 2006…and NYSW will likely abandon it soon. trains currently are not running on the line, although in theory they still could.
But if/when the rails are removed, Norwich, population 7,000, will have NO service of any kind…and the nearest active rail will be 20 miles away
Scot
Columbia doesnt quite qualify IMO…
because there are active rail lines right along its edges…within a mile or two of the town borders to the south east and north east…and there is that spur running into town…
and…there is a commuter rail station (MARC) at Dorsey… which is also 2 miles from Columbia…there are probably lots of people in Columbia who take commuter rail to and from Columbia every day…which sort of makes it “served by rail”…
Annapolis however…that could be the winner!
anyone know how far away active rails are from Annapolis proper?
Scot