I see some U.S. railways with the word “belt” in their names, what does this refer to? does it mean this is a railway that is basically circular and returns to it’s point of origin? or am I off in the turnip patch? any answers out there?
That’s about right. Belt railways don’t always form a complete loop, but they are almost always are either terminal railroads that facilitate interchange between larger railroads in large cities or they are shortlines within large cities that primarily service industries. Think of them as terminal railways.
In the Chicago area, the BRC and IHB are about as close to loops as possible, since the Lake pretty much blocks off the east. Both connect with all other line-haul roads coming into Chicago and originally were designed to serve as bypass routes reducing direct interchange in the downtown area. The Chicago River & Indiana served a similar function closer to the downtown area.
Belt lines are usually jointly owned by the various line-haul roads with which they connect, BRC and TRRA are the prime examples of such an arrangement.
“Belt” in the railway useage stems from both functions of a belt, to “encircle” and to “couple.” Belt lines both encircled a city (to get it out of the core congestion) and coupled the various Class Is together.
Belt lines had three purposes:
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To enable better connections between railroads serving a terminal by circumventing the core of the terminal for through and interchange movements as terminal cores were severely congested by passenger terminnals, freight houses, and industries. Generally these belt lines had multiple Class I owners. Examples include Belt Railway of Chicago, Indiana Harbor Belt, Alton &
Southern, and Toledo Terminal. Since the Class Is by mutual agreement determine the rates and service, they can either make it advantageous or disadvantageous for themselves to route traffic through a terminal where connections are done by the agency of a belt line. Compare Chicago to St. Louis, for instance – the latter is expensive and slow. -
To open up new rail-served locations for industries, particularly industries too large, too dirty, too marginal, or for customer convenience not requiring a central location, for the expensive land in the terminal core, and, if reciprocal switching was included, to provide customers access to multiple carriers to obtain better service and rates. Generally these had one Class I owner and often were an element in an industrial land development program. Examples include the Missouri Pacific belt line around the west and north side Omaha, and Rio Grande’s eponymous Belt Line in northeast Denver. The latter was built to provide access to Denver Union Stockyards, the Conoco refinery, other industries, and to enable better connections with Union Pacific, the Q, and the Rock Island, instead of worming everything through the tangled crescent that wrapped around Union Station.
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To enable a large industry that owned a belt line to make connection with most or all of the C
I think the previous posters have pretty well summed up the situation. I’d just like to add that there was, of course, the St Louis Southwestern Railway, the famous “Cotton Belt”, later absorbed by SP. In this case I believe the term refers to the line’s passing through an area where cotton farming was important, in the same way that one would refer to a ‘banana belt’ or ‘bible belt’.
Regards
Ed
Thanks to all the answers, and eg: I forgot all about “cotton belt” but I think I realised they meant “cotton belt” as in banana belt. thanks again, this may come in handy when naming my road.
Let me add one more, farther out from the two mentioned above.
Absolutely… The EJ&E may be one of the greatest belt railways of all time.
Dave
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Another factor on why the EJ&E has been underused as a Chicago by-pass is the fact that it is a line-haul road located beyond the limits of the Chicago Switching District. Prior to Staggers, this meant that it had to be included in routing instructions to receive traffic from connecting roads. BRC and IHB, both of which are terminal roads within the Chicago Switching District, did not have this restriction. Perhaps somebody with rate and traffic routing experience can help out a bit on this distinction.
I’m not sure that much has changed in the routings, Paul. What has changed is the trackage rights given to the CN and UP. UP can deliver coal from West Chicago to Joliet without actually interchanging it with EJ&E. And those are considered to be UP trains delivering autos to CN at Griffith. I’m not sure whether any carload agreements have chenged.