My favorite is the Nashville & Eastern. Somehow it survives moving the freight on a part of the old Tennesse Central. Now it is also host to our little commuter train, the Music City Star. The MCS bought 12 old C&NW/Metra cars for $1.00 each. Rewired, repainted, they look goood & run fine. The MCS bought 3 ex Amtrak F40’s to push/pull the train. The 3000 hp may last for years getting the 2-3 car trains up to 60mph for the short 40mile trip from Nashville to Lebanon.
Y’all welcome to visit Nashville & ride our train!
You guys forgot about a very important shortline, well I like it a lot!! The TC&W, formerly known as the Twin Cities and Western railroad. One of the neatest shortline out there.
Go to http://www1.webng.com/tcwr/ This is the unofficial site but the best out there. A well done explanation of the line. I am even modeling the railroad.
I guess mine would be the only one I’m close to, the Eastern Illinois RR. The line runs the old NKP trackage, from Neoga to the south through Charleston, to just north of Metcalf, IL. Interchange with the IC/CN south and CSX, north.
I am talking about the crews that all know me by sight, the management (Jim and Lou) that wave or say 'hello" on occasion, the mech dept that always has something nice to say. Sure DGNO isnt perfect, no railroad is, but before you start talking smack about a railroad that you worked for, for all of 120 days, maybe it would be wise to look at yourself in the mirror. Reason being, is I’ve been arounbd the railroad for 5 years now, and the turnover of which you speak has more to do with crews and hours than anything else. Many of the crews I origianlly saw in 02 are still working for the DGNO, and loving it.
Not really talking smack about any railroad. I know that a lot of job posting for the DGNO came thru on the TPW fax machine while I was there. I can see why there is such a high turn over rate. From what I have seen it has the largest turn over rate for the whole railamerica system. But To each his own. I really dont care what happens with railamerica any more since as I have stated in the past, I am moving onto bigger and better railroads.
Here are my five favorite short lines and regionals.
Elgin Joliet & Eastern Railway (EJ&E)
Iowa Interstate
Indiana Harbor Belt
Belt Railway of Chicago
tie between WSOR and South Shore Line
I also have seen and like the TRRA, Alton & Southern, and TP&W, and I have not seen the Peoria and Western yet. That sounds like a neat railroad to go see, especially since they use Fs in freight service!
The Camas Prairie Railroad, aka Camas Prairie RailNet, aka the new Great Northwestern Railroad (west end) and the Bountiful Grain & Craig Moutain (east end). Located in beautiful North Central Idaho, originally co-owned by the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific (later Burlington Northern then BNSF) until it went independent in 1997.
Probably one of the few shortlines owned 50/50 by two major competitors back in the day. That co-ownership allowed online shippers to have some semblance of rate and service competition. Also ran it’s own shorthaul unit trains, first logs from Jaype to the mill in Lewiston, then when barge navigation came to Lewiston the line started running shorthaul shuttle grain trains off the Prairie down to the barge terminals in Lewiston. True multimodalism.
Although two of the eastern subdivisions were officially abandoned, most of the tracks remained, and now both subdivisions are slated to see a return to rail service. Logs will once again be hauled by rail off the Jaype sub, and grain shuttles (using serviceable but outlived 80 ton hoppers) will once again make their way down off the high prairie. A new lumber distribution center is also slated to spring up.
When I lived in Central Wisconsin (Wausau to be exact) back from 1974-1978 I was partial to the Marinette, Tomahawk and Western RR which ran from Tomahawk (just a little North of Wausau and the end of the then Milwaukee Road line) to a connection (as I recall, I think I am right here) with the SOO Line secondary main in the Rhinelander area. It was a logging road owned by one of the paper companies at the time, but I don’t know what happened to it since then (even if it still exists). Perhaps WCFan can help me out here as he lives in Wausau today.
Good selection of short lines and switching lines, but you left out the Manufacturers Railway, the switching line for the Anheuser Busch brewery. Until recently they only had Alco switchers, but have some EMD equipment now. Also a stable of small cabooses of various types.
And their equipment shines-looks like it is washed and waxed weekly. They are Southern green with gold lettering and whitewall tires. They used to be quite friendly when I was a kid, many years ago. We used to hitch rides in their cabooses. Haven’t been down there for a long time but they still operate.