Just a question - what is the length of a short line route?
Shortlines are usually what remains of branchlines that are about to be closed—they can be anything from 3 miles long to 300 miles long—or even more than that—
Google the term “shortline RR” and see what you may run across—
The above is true for the modern case.
In the second half of the 19th Century, towns saw railroad service as the best way to secure their future. When a major line would decline to provide service, and bypassed a town, the town would frequently raise money to build a short line to link the town to a major railway. If at all profitable, the major line would usually take over, buy out, or at least operate the short line as a branch.
The same would apply to extractive industries such as logging or mining, except the majors would seldom take over a logging or mining line.
The other common case would be an isolated railway, usually considerably less than 200 miles, to provide transportation service between 2 points. One point would either be the destination for goods from the 1st point, or a transhipment point to water transportation. These were often started as single industry service, and sometimes later became common carriers. White Pass & Yukon and the Klondike Mining Company are narrow gauge examples that became common carriers early on. There are many Pacific Northwest standard and narrow gauge logging examples, too. Most of these would die out when the forests or ore veins were tapped out.
just my thoughts
Fred W
Here is a link to a question I asked a while back. It provided me with a lot of interesting reading when I started researching some of the Short lines that people wrote about.[:)] Weird little businesses that these little Short lines serviced to some of the strange bridges and right of ways they have.
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/171488.aspx?PageIndex=1
Brent
While the definition of shortline is fluid based on the context, the best modern definition of shortline would be:
Class 3 railroad
A class 2 railroad might then be described as a Regional. Such as PNWR or Wisconsin Central.
Class 1,2 & 3 refer to revenues of the company, but there are few cases where revenue doesn’t follow size and those are generally single commodity lines.
From the Association of American Railroads http://www.aar.org/AboutAAR/IndustryInformation/IndustryInformation.aspx
There are several types of freight railroads:
Class I railroads account for 67% of the industry’s mileage, 90% of its employees, and 93% of its freight revenue. They operate in many states and concentrate largely (but not exclusively) on long-haul, high-density intercity traffic lanes. There are seven Class I railroads: BNSF, CSX, Grand Trunk Corporation (owned by Canadian National), Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern, Soo Line (owned by Canadian Pacific), and Union Pacific.
Regional railroads operate at least 350 miles and/or have revenue of between $40 million and the Class I threshold. There were 33 regional railroads in 2007. They typically operate 400 to 650 miles in two to four states and have 75 to 500 employees.
Local railroads operate less than 350 miles and earn less than $40 million per year; the vast majority operate fewer than 75 miles in a single state and earn less than $5 million per year. There were 324 local linehaul railroads in 2007.
Switching and terminal (S&T) railroads primarily provide switching and/or terminal services. Rather than point-to-point transportation, they usually perform pick up and delivery services within a specified area, or funnel traffic between other railroads. In 2007, there were 199 S&T railroads.
I would say the last 2 categories would be short line railroads.
Enjoy
Paul
Huh, I had no idea that GTW and Soo were paper companies still. Or rather, I knew units were marked as such, but I didn’t realize it was anything more than a marking. I wonder why GTW instead of IC?
A short line is mostly categorized by slow, laid back operations. Not like the mainline hustle and bustle.
I would say ---------------- from the length of the locomotive to the end of the locomotive. Check out the Quincy RR, Quincy, MS and see what you think.