Whats the shortest "shortline"?

I going to nominate the Guelph Junction Railway which is a 10 mile piece of track that used to belong to Canadian Pacific and which is now owned by the town of Guelph. Back about ten years ago they were looking for a General Manager, and I applied for the position. I was rejected because I do not have an MBA and the railroad experience they were looking for. Then as now...I have to wonder why one would need an MBA to run a 10 mile railroad.

   Our city has The Ellis & Eastern.  It runs about 3 to 4 miles.  I would bet the shortest shortline is under a mile.

You could model the whole thing in HO without leaving out any details..

I believe that I've read that the Atlantic Western Railroad has a total of approximately 3 to 4 active miles in Sanford, NC.  A good shot of the ATW in action (this is the uncropped version, a cropped version is on railpictures.net, but I don't feel like finding it at this point and the url is in the description of this photo). 

http://penncentral2002.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1242513

I think its the shortest I have photographed and it has to be one of the shortest around.

The B&O Railroad Museum operates over 1 mile of track - not really a short line though.

Reader Railroad, The Possum Trot Line out of Reader, Ark., comes in with a 7-mile long mainline.

The East Troy Trolley Museum, still honoring freight tariffs as a common carrier shortline, is 6.375 miles long.

The Aurora, Elgin and Fox River between the I.C. interchange at Coleman, Ill. and the Illinois State Hospital at South Elgin ran a freight service of no more than about 4-miles in length.  Deliveries of sulphurous southern Illinois coal to the Illinois State Hospital ceased about 1971 or 1972 and the line was abandoned shortly thereafter.  Today a portion of the line survives as the Fox River Trolley Museum.

Excluding trackage rights with the Terminal Railroad Association of Saint Louis, I would guess that the Manufacturers Railway operates no more than 4-miles of railroad.

The Southern San Luis Valley Railroad at Blanca, Colo. weighs in with 1.53-miles, but it's either out-of-service now or has been sold to the San Luis and Rio Grande.

I would say the Louisville , New Albany & Corydon at 7 miles , or the now defunk Owensville & Posseyville RR  at just under 3 miles .

Is the Atlanta, Stone Mountain , & Lithonia  (ASML) still operating? A rock quarry RR in Lithonia, Ga. about 1.2 (?) miles long. Have a pass with no expiration listed in my files.

I would guess it's some bridge and/or terminal company-possibly under a mile in length. Who, exactly, it would be I don't know. It might make for a few interseting evenings of perusing some old Official Guides but I haven't much time this week. Any takers?

The Effingham RR, Effingham ILL, is maybe 2 miles long and serves an industrial park between CSX and CN/IC. And ILL Midwestern, in Greenville, IL, also serves an industrial park is listed at 14000 ft. It's connected to CSX an BNSF.

inch

Yes, Kevin, you are on the right track (!?!!).  It would take some searching but I believe it to be less than a mile if memory serves; it's just that I don't recall which one it is.

Murphy Siding

   Our city has The Ellis & Eastern.  It runs about 3 to 4 miles.  I would bet the shortest shortline is under a mile.

The DeLorme atlas has E & E running to Valley Springs and on to Minnesota? Am I right in assuming that the line there is actually D & I.

Where are the ends of the E & E, and what do they haul?

The last time I went to the Strasburg railroad in the 1980s ,I think it was billed as the longest running short line, about four miles. Only tourist now. That day, #90 was pulling the train. Leaving Strasburg #90 was running backwards and I was standing on the “porch” of the observation car. The smoke box radiated a lot of heat.

Rich

Kevin C. Smith

I would guess it's some bridge and/or terminal company-possibly under a mile in length.

I saw this question last night but as someone observed on another thread recently, reality has really intruded into my hobby life. I recall there was mention in a recent TRAINS issue, (given my current fight with reality my sense of timing is a bit off) say a few month's back, that there was a spur that was in fact a separate legally incorporated entity from the terminal or switching railroad it was connected to and the company it served. I think it was only a few thousand feet in length. It was in one of the front sections of a recent issue.

AgentKid

Illinois Western is shorter than it's sister Effingham RR (CSX(CR/PRR) and CN(IC)

Effingham is an industrial lead that runs in a circle and Illinois Western is barely even an industrial lead.

 My Altamont California timetable shows that the Orange Empire Railway Museum has a 1.9 mile line from South End to Perris-Nuevo with 6 named stations along the way and a junction with BNSF at Perris-7th Street.

If you don't accept a museum line as a shortline (although I think the OERM does have some freight operations) then there is the Quincy Railroad which runs 3.3 miles from Quincy Junction (UP) to Quincy.

Jack

Although the Texas Transportation Company no longer exists, it came in at 1.3 miles. It primarily served the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio. They had a small interchange with the Espee just west of East Yard (between East Yard and Sunset Station). It was and electrified street running line. I really miss that railroad (although all my memories of it was when I was a kid).

Jack_S

 My Altamont California timetable shows that the Orange Empire Railway Museum has a 1.9 mile line from South End to Perris-Nuevo with 6 named stations along the way and a junction with BNSF at Perris-7th Street.

If you don't accept a museum line as a shortline (although I think the OERM does have some freight operations) then there is the Quincy Railroad which runs 3.3 miles from Quincy Junction (UP) to Quincy.
 

About the only freight ops I've heard of at OERM are movements of equipment to or from the museum, typically on a flatcar. 

- Erik (OERM member since 1989) 

erikem

Jack_S

 My Altamont California timetable shows that the Orange Empire Railway Museum has a 1.9 mile line from South End to Perris-Nuevo with 6 named stations along the way and a junction with BNSF at Perris-7th Street.

If you don't accept a museum line as a shortline (although I think the OERM does have some freight operations) then there is the Quincy Railroad which runs 3.3 miles from Quincy Junction (UP) to Quincy.
 

 

About the only freight ops I've heard of at OERM are movements of equipment to or from the museum, typically on a flatcar. 

- Erik (OERM member since 1989) 

Also OERM would not be a common carrier which Short Line denotes.

But Whitewater Valley RR in Indiana would.

(look at the clash between Indiana and Ohio RR/RailAmerica and the little museum railroad over switching a scrap metal yard at Connersville IN on the STB website)

Though it disappeared when the P&W took it over, the Warwick in Rhode Island was listed in the Official Guide as 1.1 miles in length.  It had enough business to keep two locomotives on the roster.

The Tyburn RR in Morrisville, PA has about 5 or so tracks in a little yard off of a branchline into US Steel.  I don't think the yard is even more than a mile long.  They load/unload tanks, covered hoppers, open hoppers with scrap, and even have a flatcar half-buried to serve as a ramp for loading and unloading flatcars.  They roster a 44 and 45-tonner.  It is a busy little place - always packed with cars.

They must be some of the world's best switchmen to get that all sorted out. 

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=qpynvs8s2h9h&style=b&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=20859690&encType=1

aerial photo.  the whole railroad goes form the west end of the yard tracks, to the east end switch by the trailers  (where there's a NS 67Z ingot train on its way west)

Port Jersey Railroad? 3 miles

 http://www.pjrr.com/maps.htm

http://www.aslrra.org/our_members/railroad_members/details.cfm?railroadid=1351

Shawnee Terminal Railway Co.? also 3 miles

 http://www.pioneer-railcorp.com/

 Could go through all of these to find the shortest....

Do "we" mean the shortest *independent* e.g. no tpart of G&W or other collections?

Dave G.

   If you want to make it a "line-haul" independent shortlines as opposed to switching/terminal lines and short operations taking over abandoned sidings, there was the Virginia Central Railway which had just short of a mile of main line in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The VC abandoned its western 37 miles of line in 1938, serving industrial customers (and splitting rate divisions) until 1983.

   I think the Pioneer & Fayette (all 1/2 mile of it) subsisted as a switching line. As shortline guru Ed Lewis says, they may be shorter than the big railroads, but they're just as wide.

   If you want the ridiculous, there was the B&M-owned Springfield Terminal. It eventually abandoned all of its original trackage sans a siding to a lumberyard next to the B&M main. To maintain the ST's status for the Guilford subleasing hijinx, the B&M local would come to set out a loco and car, the ST crew would switch the lumberyard, then return the loco to the B&M crew. You could measure this in hundreds of feet.

JonathanS

Though it disappeared when the P&W took it over, the Warwick in Rhode Island was listed in the Official Guide as 1.1 miles in length.  It had enough business to keep two locomotives on the roster.

If I recall correctly, this line was featured in the June 1967 issue of Trains - and at 1.1 miles is shorter than almost all of the lines mentioned in this thread. 

richg1998

 

The last time I went to the Strasburg railroad in the 1980s ,I think it was billed as the longest running short line, about four miles. Only tourist now. That day, #90 was pulling the train. Leaving Strasburg #90 was running backwards and I was standing on the “porch” of the observation car. The smoke box radiated a lot of heat.

Rich

Yes,  And unlike most tourist lines it is also a Common Carrier, too.

ButchKnouse

Murphy Siding

   Our city has The Ellis & Eastern.  It runs about 3 to 4 miles.  I would bet the shortest shortline is under a mile.

The DeLorme atlas has E & E running to Valley Springs and on to Minnesota? Am I right in assuming that the line there is actually D & I.

Where are the ends of the E & E, and what do they haul?

      I missed this earlier.  Sometimes, I'm spacey.  The E&E tracks technically run all the way to Valley Springs.  However, there are some breaks in the track, one is by Brandon, just northeast of Husets Speedway, and several approaching, and in the town of Valley Springs.  It's probably been nearly 20 years since a train went over the Big Sioux River and Splitrock Creek bridges at Brandon.

     On paper, at least, the E&E could run a train all the way to a connection with UP in Worthington, Minnesota, by it's connection with the Nobles & Rock railroad at Manley, Minnesota, 2 miles east of Valley Springs.  Of course, pigs could fly too.  It's all 10 mph track on a good day.

     Realisically, the E&E runs from near the tank farm west of I-229 to near Great Bear Recreation Area.  90% of it's traffic is probably hauling gravel from the Sweetman quarry pits near the Sioux Empire Fairgrounds to the Sweetman asphalt plant near Great Bear.  It also hauls scrap metal out of T.J.'s recycling, tankcars into and out of the tankfarm, tankcars to Pam OIL, and lots of cement into the S.D. Cement plant terminal just west of I-229.