A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that operates over a relatively short distance relative to larger, national railroad networks. The term is used primarily in the United States and Canada. In the former, railroads are categorized by operating revenue, and most shortline railroads fall into the Class III or Class II categorization defined by the Surface Transportation Board .
6-733: The Deepwater Railway was an intrastate short line railroad located in West Virginia in the United States which operated from 1898 to 1907. William N. Page , a civil engineer and entrepreneur , had begun a small logging railroad in Fayette County in 1896, sometimes called the Loup Creek and Deepwater Railway . It extended from an interchange at Deep Water with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) on
12-416: A Class III is a railroad with an annual operating revenue of less than $ 28 million. In Canada , Transport Canada classifies shortline railroads as Class II . There are three kinds of shortlines in the U.S.: handling, switch, and ISS (Interline Settlement System). It was reported in 2009 that shortline railroads employ 20,000 people in the U.S., and own 30 percent of the nation's railroad tracks. About
18-440: A quarter of all U.S. rail freight travels at least a small part of its journey over a short-line railroad. An ever-growing number of shortline operators have been acquired by larger holding companies which own or lease railroad properties in many states, as well as internationally. For example, Genesee & Wyoming controls over 100 railroads in over 40 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces. A consequence of such consolidation
24-988: The Deepwater Railway was acquired by its sister Tidewater Railway to form the Virginian Railway . Short line railroad At the beginning of the railroad age, nearly all railway lines were shortlines, locally chartered, financed and operated; as the railroad industry matured, local lines were merged or acquired to create longer mainline railroads. Especially since 1980 in the U.S. and 1990 in Canada, many shortlines have been established when larger railroad companies sold off or abandoned low-profit portions of their trackage. Shortline operators typically have lower labor, overhead and regulatory costs than Class I railroads and therefore are often able to operate profitable lines that lost money for their original owners. Shortlines generally exist for one or more of
30-542: The following reasons: In France, the equivalent of shortlines railroads are the opérateurs ferroviaires de proximité (local railways operators). Because of their small size and generally low revenues, the great majority of shortline railroads in the U.S. are classified by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) as Class III . As defined by the Surface Transportation Board (STB),
36-791: The south bank of the navigable Kanawha River 4 miles (6.4 km) up a steep grade into the mountainous terrain southward, following the winding Loup Creek to reach a sawmill at Robson which was owned by the Loup Creek Estate. It was operated by the C&;O under a verbal agreement. In 1898, the Deepwater Railway was incorporated, and an extension was planned to reach nearby coal deposits at Page . In 1902, assisted by silent partner, millionaire industrialist Henry H. Rogers of Standard Oil fame, Page expanded his plans, first to extend further in West Virginia to Matoaka . In 1907,
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