Don’t take this as a challenge, but everything that I read points to the Surface Transportation Board.
Rich
My perhaps faulty recollection is that having a grade crossing of a public road can also bring in FRA oversight.
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Thank you all this is interesting reading , things I would never think of looking up on my own.
Chuck
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That’s true. The FRA is mainly involved with railroad safety and the efficient movement of people and goods by rail. But, the FRA does not concern itself with the classification system.
Rich
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I don’t doubt the FRA will involve itself if there is a grade crossing is involved. I should have mentioned that the extent of my knowledge of FRA regulations is limited to topics related to crews, namely: engineer/ conductor certifications, hours of service and general safety (part 217) compliance. I have never been involved in track or signal regs.
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So, what classifications do multinational regional railroad conglomerates like Genesee and Wyoming fall into? Or does a parent company have no classification? Instead, do the individual regional companies, like Ohio Central for example, receive the class status and pay any corresponding taxes etc. over and above what the parent company pays?
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I know nothing about Genesee & Wyoming, but I will paraphrase what Wikipedia has to say. Apparently, as a holding company, it is not included in any of the three classes.
Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W) is an American short line railroad holding company, that owns or maintains an interest in 122 railroads in the United States, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom; and formerly in Australia.
The company grew from the Class III Genesee and Wyoming Railroad, founded in 1899. As of 2021, G&W owns or leases 116 freight railroads.
G&W’s four North American regions serve 42 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces and include 113 short line and regional freight railroads with more than 13,000 track-miles.
With respect to the FRA - it pretty much involves any safety related issue that was formerly handled by the ICC. Track and signals are very much the FRA’s purview.
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It was a hot and humid weekend, keeping me inside. So I decided to do a bit more research on Class I railroads.
In 1900, there were 132 Class I railroads. By 1910, that number had grown to 177 where it remained into the 1920s. By 1930, there were still more than 100 Class I railroads in spite of bankruptcies and mergers.
The number stabilized at 127 throughout the 1940s and 1950s, but by 1960 the number of Class I railroads began an unending downward trend due to bankruptcies and mergers. As a result, there were only 40 at the beginning of 1980. The period between 1980 and 2005 saw a significant drop from 40 to 7 as a series of mergers occurred between Class I railroads.
The year 1995 was a true turning point as the Union Pacific acquired Chicago & North Western, and the Burlington Northern acquired the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe. At the beginning of 1995, there were only 11 Class I railroads, in large part because the Surface Transportation Board (STB) raised the revenue standard to $250 million (inflated annually thereafter) in 1992.
Curiously, the various sources that report the number of Class I freight railroads typically fail to identify those railroads by name. Mostly, the various reporting sources aggregate performance as a group. In my limited research, I had a quite difficult time identifying all of the Class I freight railroads on a year-by-year basis. For example, at the beginning of 1995 there were 11 Class I freight railroads according to the Federal Railroad Administration, but I can only identify the following 9 with any degree of certainty.
Burlington Northern
Canadian National
Union Pacific
Canadian Pacific
Kansas City Southern
Chicago & North Western
Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe
Southern Pacific
Conrail
If someone can provide the identity of the other two, it would be most appreciated.
In 1998, the Union Pacific acquired Southern Pacific and Conrail split into CSX and NS. At that point, only 7 Class 1 freight railroads remained until the CPKCS merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern in 2023. The resulting 6 Class 1 freight railroads remain today.
Rich
The two you are missing from your list are CSX and NS, it seems.
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Aww, geez, you’re right. I tripped myself up over Conrail splitting up between CSX and NS in 1998 and then forgot to include CSX and NS pre-1998. Thanks for melting my brain freeze. 
Rich
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