A question and a poll...
Question: what's the biggest short line railroad in the United States?
Poll: what's the best short line railroad in the United States?
D.
Careful, Durango there are a lot of "regionals" that do not have enough income to be referred to as such, like the New England Central. I can't think of it as a shortline and it when was Central Vermont, it was a class I, except near the end of it's CN days.
In my own mind (for what that's worth) The Finger Lakes Railway is my "best" shortline. The Vermont lines (Clarendon & Pittsford, Green Mountain, Vermont and Washington County) act like a short line, but are in that grey area along with the Providence & Worcester. why the Finger Lakes? Try B23-7s in NYC lightning stripes, or better yet, Lehigh Valley Cornell Red!
The New York Susquehanna & Western is another "tweener" with an F45 on its roster with SD40T2s and a former owner of SD70Ms, and Dash8-40Bs. It too, once was a class I, largely on anthracite coal and passenger income. In this same line of thought Central of New Jersey has to be called a short line, since it only went from Jersey City to Scranton to the west and southern New Jersey's sand and agriculture region. There are so many pre-regionals that are not big enough to be called regionals, by 2007 standards, that I can't bring them all to mind.
I would defer to nanaimo73 for his choice of the biggest. Dale?
As far as the best? Railway Age picked CRANDIC two years ago- who am I to disagree?
http://www.crandic.com/stellent2/groups/public/documents/pub/cr2_au_news_002594.hcsp#P-4_0
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Biggest? Is that by carloads? Length of line? Annual revenue? Car and locomotive fleet? Most government funding?
Best? Is that by financial success? Employee satisfaction? Community relations?
There are many short lines (600+). Most shine in one or more ways. Take your pick.
Check out www.aslrra.org, it has links to many short line and regional railroad sites.
LC
I think the biggest in terms of miles of track would unquestionably be the DME/ICE combination. Both are owned by Cedar Rail and are integrated operationally. Even if we consider them separately the DME would probably still be the longest.
As to the best, that would be a subjective decision. Best in terms of profitability, ROW, frequency of service, locomotives, ton miles, or by some other measure? Best would have to be defined before I would even hazard a guess. Even then (with the exception of ton miles carried) it would be a matter of opinion and it's a well known fact that opinions are like a**holes, we all have one.
Mark
I dont get out much and explore Short Lines. I also dont quite know the difference between a "short line" and a "regional".
A couple of such lines comes to mind...the previously mentioned CRANDIC in Iowa is a pretty busy line. Here in Indiana, The Indiana Railroad has grown by leaps and bounds over the past 20 years.
ed
I dont know much about this company, but for a pure shortline, i am going to nominate the Sanderville Railroad in Sanderville, Ga.
Those JM Huber and Thiele cars one sees seem to originate on this line. Their website indicates that this 10 mile railroad has nothing but 132 and 136 pound rail. They also interchange 4 times daily with the NS.
Wow. That is shortline railroading!
MP173 wrote:I dont get out much and explore Short Lines. I also dont quite know the difference between a "short line" and a "regional".
I don't know that it is a "definition", but the FRA breaks down the railroads into three groups: The class ones (of which there are 8, including Amtrak), those which have over 400,000 employee hours (28 - including DME, FEC, EJE, MRL, WSOR, and LIRR), and those which have less than 400,000 employee hours (several hundred - including IAIS...).
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