Short lines

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I was wondering if any of you know the answers to any of these questions:

  1. About how many short lines/ Industial lines are in America?

  2. How many by state?

  3. How many miles of previously owned tracks are being operated by a short line?

  4. How many car loads of freight are handled by short lines a year?

Maybe Dale can answer some of these…

2

Sorry Railfan 1 don’t have a clue but I was looking through my copy of Ghost Railroads of KY the other night and and your question just got me to thinking. I bet if you look at a railroad map of today it’s probably starting to look a lot like the one on the inside front & back cover sheets which shows many shortlines in the state dating around the early 1900’s. The only ones I really know of is RJ Corman in Bardstown and TTI in Maysville, don’t know if you could call the Paducah & Louisville a shortline it runs across half the state.

Dale

3

This might be of help.

http://www.amazon.com/American-Shortline-Railway-Guide-Locomotive/dp/0890242909

4

Yeah, I have one of those books but it’s from a while back so it’s out of date.

5

Lance,

700 would be a rough guess.

Use this for 2005-

http://www.aar.org/AboutTheIndustry/StateInformation.asp

The 2006 figures should be posted around April. I can’t figure out how to copy and paste the different State lists into a master list on my computer. It seems to be designed so people can’t do that.

6

Thanks!

7

Check out the American Shortline & Regional Railroad Associations website at

http://www.aslrra.org

8

Good link. But KJRY is not a member I guess.

9

Quoting from “Railroads Seek Tax Aid,” The Wall Street Journal, 01/20/07

  • State with the most short-line and regional railroads: PA (55)
  • States where all commercial rail lines are short line: NH, RI, VT
  • Most commonly shipped commodity: coal (20% of all shipments)
  • Miles of short-line track in U.S.: 42,750
  • Miles of “big railroad corporations:” approximately 98,000. Remember that’s route-miles, not track-miles.
  • 2006 employment: 12,463
  • 2004 total revenue of short-line and regional railroads: $2.99-billion