And, would a shortline send out a locomotive to pickup rolling stock from its customers?
Bear,That’s how a short line makes its living by delivering and picking up cars just like the big boys do.
The majority of modern short lines has sprung up after a Class one railroad decides to sell off maginal profit branch lines. These branch lines is usually bought by a Port Aurthority and then leased to a short line operator like R.J.Corman,GWI and other like operators.
A lot of times these operators turns a low traffic branch line into a profitable operations by regaining the industries the big Class one lost over the years…
Class III Railroad – often called a “short line railroad.” Class III railroads have operating revenues of $36.6 million or less
Larry, I don’t think I was very clear with my second question. Would a short line send a locomotive out to just pick up cars from, say, customers A, B, and C without dropping any cars off either at those customers or customers D and E?
Bear,Absoluetly! You see loaded or empty cars are picked up and taken to the interchange in a timely manner…
Short lines survive by giving their customers the service they request.
Did you know some short lines offer switching service by assigning a engine and crew to do in house switching?
Great, Larry, thanks. My layout is definitely a shortline with an interchange and I have suddenly realized that it might just be necessary to send out a loco and caboose and pick up cars from their locations and drop them off at the interchange or another industry.
As for the switching services, I always thought that the industry, assuming it was big enough, would do its own switching.
Any railroad would do that if they didn’t have cars for any of those industries.
If they did have cars for those industries, then the industries wouldn’t be very happy if the railroad didn’t spot their cars.
One thing modelers and customers don’t consider much is if the class 1 railroad the short line connects with pulls the interchange at 900pm, then it really doesn’t matter whether the cars are pulled from industry at 700am or 300pm, as long as they are on the interchange by 900pm they are good.
As far as what a short line is, it is a small independent railroad (a branch line and a short line are two completely different things) and is defined by the amount of revenue it generates. The dollar amount varies by era, lower the further back you go.
There are two basic types of short lines, as far as origins go. There are small railroads that were built as small railroads and were never bought or merged into a larger railroad. The oldest railroad still operating under its original name is a short line, the Strasburg Railroad (number two is the UP). The second type of short line is basically a branch line of a class 1 railroad that was sold off and became an independent railroad. They were fairly rare until the 1970’s when laws changed and the class 1’s began shedding branches and se
So true. The plant where I work was formerly served by CSX, and now is served by Genessee & Wyoming. With CSX, regardless of what was going on in the plant, we had to meet their set in stone schedule for their trip in, or forfeit service for the day. With G&W, if we have work going on and need them to come in early or late to accomodate what we are doing in the plant, they make it happen.
I am learning here. There is a short line here in Arizona, the Apache Railway, which has been around since 1917 and connects to the BNSF at Holbrook. It was primarily a logging railroad, supplying some saw mills and a paper mill. The paper mill, the biggest customer, closed down a few years ago. By that time, it was processing recycled paper. Prior to its closure, the railroad abandoned about the southern half of its route when the sawmills closed down, primarily in McNary (I believe). Apache Railway is in bankruptcy right now, and I think it is trying to reorganize, but I don’t think it is going to happen.
Bear,Here’s a link to GWI’s family of short lines…In the upper right hand corner you will see “Find a railroad” that is a drop down list. If you check these roads out you will learn what commodities they haul…A very useful tool for modeling a short line.
A lot of it is contracted out because it can be expensive. Industries doing their own switching is also a more recent thing, as class ones consolidated and shed locomotives the used locomotive market became flooded with engines so the rental rates were really low. The industry would have to have somebody qualified to run the engine and if it entered class 1 trackage would have to have somebody qualified on the rules.
For example, there are shortline/switching lines that had two engines so they wouldn’t need a run around and could switch facing and trailing point switches. If you are a class one and have to buy the engines new, and have all the higher costs associated with engine maintenance, that’s horribly expensive. If you are just leasing a couple used engines on a rate that doesn’t cover replacement, then its feasible.
Class 1’s have different costs, they have more infastructure to cover and higher maintenance costs. If a bridge burns down on a shortline, the line will probably fold, unless they can get a grant/loan from a public entity torebuild it. If a bridge burns down on a class 1 there are on staff civil engineers planning the new bridge, pile drivers and bridge material headed that way before the fire is out. A shortline is maintained to class 1 or 2 track, a class 1 is maintained to class 4 or 5, a HUGE difference in cost. Class 1’s generally have 286k or 315k bridge loadings with double stack clearances, shortlines 263k and maybe 286k.
It looks like the Genessee & Wyoming is some sort of holding company which gobbles up short lines.
Dave,That would depend on how much traffic is generated beyond that bridge and if there is enough industries that require daily rail service then the bridge will be rebuilt by the owner which is usually a Port Authority with State and Federal money.
As far as track that is a problem with some short lines that operates over 60 or more year old track seeing some modern cars is to heavy for such light rail.
All is not lost as this video shows.
“Gobbles up” seems a little harsh, as far as the Tomahawk Railway (TR), here in northen WI.
I wouldn’t consider the G&Y as monsters that try to put others out of business, which is what the term “gobbles up” implies to me.
The TR provides daily service between the Packaging Corp. of America’s pulp mill, and it’s huge warehouse in Tomohawk, WI. It does daily interchange with PCA traffic with the CN.
The TR goes back to it’s heritage, which was the MT&W, Marinette, Tomohawk and Western, which was incorporated in 1894 to serve the paper industry.
WI. paper mills have been going extinct since the 90’s, and this little railroad, with it’s 6 miles of track, and the PCA keeps things going, and people working.
Being taken over by the G&Y has helped keep this a reality.
The TR handles about 8,000 carloads a year, interchanging with the CN.
The G&Y along with others, like Progressive Rail, I think, help short lines keep operating.
Just my [2c] worth Bearman.
Mike.
Bear,They also bought Rail America and all its short lines…
GWI started as a 14.5 mile long short line that served one salt mine-the Genesee & Wyoming Railroad.
The Wisconsin Northern owned by Progressive Rail, does this. Their two main locos are a pair of GP15’s, sometimes struggle with the length of trains they move, so usually a SW1500 trails, to help with the load, and do switching as they go.
Mike.
I did not mean gobble up in a negative way.
In recent years, shortlines have often been formed to take over branchlines of larger railroads, because the big roads can’t make a profit on the line, or at least not make enough profit to make it worth their while. One reason might be the line has customers that only need occassional service, like a lumber yard getting a car or two a week or a stone quarry that ships out a couple of hopper cars every other day.
In some areas that is seasonal like National Lime at Spor,Ohio,it can ship 60 car trains twice a week during the “construction season” and nothing for weeks during the winter.
I guess to answer Bearman’s question directly, we could see what Wiki has to say:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortline_railroad
Mike.