An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics , or military site. In regions of the world influenced by British railway culture and management practices, they are often referred to as tramways (which are distinct from trams or streetcars, a passenger technology). Industrial railways may connect the site to public freight networks through sidings , or may be isolated (sometimes very far away from public rail or surface roads) or located entirely within a served property.
6-720: The Swan Ranch Railroad (SRRR) is an industrial railroad that operates within the Swan Ranch Industrial Park , located in Cheyenne, Wyoming . The railroad is owned and operated by Watco , which announced the formation of the SRRR on 30 November 2011. SRRR began operations in December 2011, operating 17,192 feet (3.2561 mi) of trackage. SRRR interchanges with both the BNSF and Union Pacific railroads. Today
12-648: A few miles/kilometers long. While these types of lines most often at some point connect via exchange sidings or transfer sidings to bulk mainline shipping railways, there are notable exceptions which are hundreds of miles long, which include the iron ore -carrying railways in Western Australia , or in China to transport coal, while in Canada there are the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway and
18-486: A large number of industrial railways serve the sugarcane industry. In Colorado , the Coors Brewing Company uses its own industrial railway at the brewery both for the delivery of raw materials and for shipping the finished product. Some industrial railways are military in purpose, and serve ammunition dumps or transportation hubs and storage facilities. The world's largest industrial railway serves
24-487: The Cartier Railway . These lines can be thought of as dedicated shipment routes, where only the products of that industry require shipment between those two points, and hence a dedicated line makes more economic sense with only limited possibility of consolidation of shipment with other industries. See Compagnie de gestion de Matane Industrial railways serve many different industries. In both Australia and Cuba
30-669: The Railroad operates over 17 miles of track, serves seven customers including Jebro Industries, Brenntag Pacific, Searing Industries, HollyFrontier Refinery, Granite Peak Transloading and Cheyenne Rail Hub. This unique state-of-the-art development is at the intersection of two Class I railroads, the Union Pacific and the BNSF, as well as two major interstate highways, I-25 and I-80 – making it a prime location for manufacturing and distribution companies. Transloading services are available at
36-585: The SRRR. Industrial railroad Industrial railways were once very common, but with the rise of road transport , their numbers have greatly diminished. An example of an industrial railway would transport bulk goods, for example clay from a quarry or coal from a mine, to an interchange point, called an exchange siding, with a main line railway, onwards from where it would be transported to its final destination. The main reasons for industrial railways are normally for one of two reasons: Resultantly, most industrial railways are short, usually being only
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