Post-Conrail actually

Conrail started spinning off branchlines into new shortlines from Day 1 (April Fools Day, 1976).  The Hillsdale County in Michigan was one fairly well documented example.  The Staggers Act (passed in October 1980) just opened the floodgates.

If you want to look for examples, I suggest finding a copy of "The American Short Line Railway Guide" by Kalmbach.  Several editions over the years.  Lots of good info, and a photo for almost every entry.

Scott Chatfield

Post 4R and Staggers

The shortlines didn't start happening until after the passage of the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act and the Staggers Act were passed in 1976 and 1980 respectively.

Many of the railroads that were spun off went into bankruptcy themselves.  If you look at the history of the bigger holding companies (e.g. G&W) and look at the railroads they acquired you can see some of the names of the spin offs.

For example if you look at the maps of the G&W from this 2006 annual report you can see several shortlines that were formed.

AR_'06_3-02 use this file:Layout 1 (corporate-ir.net)

Another source would be to look at the membership of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Assoc. and see when those members were formed.

It's more post-1976 than

It's more post-1976 than 1980s, but this is a good book about these spinoff lines:  The "Do" Lines: The Story of the Rail Roads Created to Take Over Lines Unwanted: Edward A. Lewis: Amazon.com: Books

Fascinating little railroads and a great model railroad theme!

Everett Railroad

The Everett Railroad was incorporated in 1954, discontinued in 1982, then revived in 1984 and is still in operation today.

Close to you (MECFan), the

Close to you (MECFan), the NBSR and Eastern Maine Ry were created from CP castoffs, and they are thriving now. 

maine roads

@Tenpenny, 

Two great examples, a littler "newer" then my time frame. Both 1995 est. 

I considered going with a Maine theme,,,   but some Mike guy really set the bar high up Dirigo state!!!

@Jeff, very interesting read. Copy ordered..

@ Scott & Dave.. Thank you for the pre-staggers info.. I could possibly back date this RR slightly..

A big one that comes to mind that has been made its way to social media thanks to the Crew Call podcast is the Pocono Northeast.

@ missy, what was the reason for the 2yr shut down on the Everett?

According to the 3rd Edition

According to the 3rd Edition of the American Shortline Railway Guide (1986), the Everett Railroad operated three different lines during its life.  They started in 1954 operating "several miles of the abandoned Huntington & Broad Top Mountain Railroad near Everett, PA".  That line closed in 1982 when Conrail discontinued service on the connecting line.  The railroad therefore had no place to run from then until May 1984, when they acquired 7.9 miles of track from Sproul to Brookes Mills (both PA) from Conrail, then in 1985 they leased 6.8 miles of track between Roaring Springs, Martinsburg, and Corryville, PA that had previously been operated by the Allegheny Southern Railroad. 

As noted, the creation of Conrail in 1976 really sparked a large number of shortlines formed to operate various branchlines and secondary main lines not included in the Conrail system.  Many of these shortlines relied on public money to start up.  Two seismic events in the early 1980s spawned the creation of many shortlines, specifically the abandonment of the Milwaukee Road system west of Miles City, Montana, and the subsequent sale of the rest of the railroad to the Soo Line in 1985, and the bankruptcy of the Rock Island.  There were many shortlines that stepped forward to take over various parts of the Rock, mostly under "designated operator" appointments of the bankruptcy court.  Perhaps one of the more interesting examples was the Cadillac & Lake City, which had been primarily a tourist railroad in Michigan, they moved west and for a number of years operated a former Rock Island line out of Limon, Colorado.  Most of the railroads created out of the wreckage of the Milwaukee Road in the very early 1980s were typically associated with some of the larger shippers on the abandoned parts of the line to preserve rail service, such as Weyerhaeuser's Chehalis Western Railroad in western Washington (actually a resurrection of an older name) and Potlatch's St. Maries River Railroad in northern Idaho.  The State of South Dakota purchased several hundred miles of Milwaukee trackage in that state and contracted operations out to several shortlines, including Dakota Southern, Dakota Rail, Sisseton Southern, and a few others (some of those companies operated the same line in succession.)  Another major shortline startup in the west about that time was the Eureka Southern, which in 1984 purchased and started operating the northern end of the Northwestern Pacific, between Willits and Eureka, California.  

There was another major wave of shortline creations in the last half of the 1980s.  UP and CSX especially sold a lot of branchlines to shortline railroads in the 1986-1987 time frame, UP in particular identified and sold something like 86 branchlines in those two years.  It should be noted some of these were bundled and sold as package deals. There was a major hiccup in shortline spinoffs in the roughly 1988-1989 time frame, the Pittsburg & Lake Erie Railroad was in dire financial straits and was attempting to sell itself in a way that would invalidate all union contracts, the unions took the railroad to court and won the first round or two.  Since one of the biggest reasons for shortline sales was establishing the new railroads as non-union operations this decision had a chilling effect on further sales for a year or two, until the Supreme Court decided the issue in favor of the carrier.  

In addition to the already referenced resources I'd suggest finding copies of the American Shortline Railway Guide, especially the 3rd edition already mentioned, the 4th Edition (1991), and the 5th Edition (1996).  I think the 5th was the last.  Both Trains and Railfan & Railroad have run many feature articles on shortlines through the years.

Hope this helps!

Jeff Moore

Elko, NV    

  "As I develop a plan

One thing to consider if modeling modern era shortlines is they often have a very limited variety of traffic so are not good for those who like to model multiple types of rolling stock. Of course the big railroads also narrowed their scope over the years as trucks took over most local traffic. In most areas pre 1960 had a lot more rail activity and variety. I've modeled both 1950's and 1990's eras over the years and like building and running modern rolling stock but prefer older era operations. ....DaveB

Meker Southern

is located out of Puyallup just east of Tacoma Wa.  It runs on some of the original Northern Pacific track dating back to the turn of the last century.

@ DaveB

Dave, 

I agree with you, but also see a positive in that. Just looking at some of the latest releases in HO for freight cars!! 

A small fleet of cars might be a good thing!

@ Jeff... thank you for the Everett story.  Very interesting

A small fleet of cars might be a good thing!

For sure, most folks have way too many cars and engines for their layout space. The problem I mentioned is that shortlines often only use one kind of car, lots of grain hoppers or maybe tank cars or whatever so the car type doesn't vary. If one likes that specific car type then it's not a problem but if they want more variety they might consider a location with more varied car types.A class one yard scene or a bridge line for example might offer more traffic variety.The CCT that I model was a small line but was owned by the WP, SP,and ATSF which used it for all Santa Fe traffic between Stockton and Sacramento so lots of different cars showed up ....DaveB

While Dave was right about

While Dave was right about the Staggers Act allowing the rapid growth of short lines I seem to recall that prior to that advancement there was the 4R act which helped funnel money for short lines and big lines to fix bad track conditions and preserve service.

Often many of the early short lines failed because they under estimated the true cost of track rehabilitation and couldn't generate enough revenue to pay their bills and grow their business. Truthfully, many of the early short lines shouldn't have tried to save many worn out branch lines as they were too far gone and should have just been abandoned.

I remember several who "died early" due to derailments which took out a bridge and shut them down or their one large industry closed and they lost their main revenue stream. Sadly, many short line operators didn't know what they were getting into and failed because of poor financial decisions.

I always said the most profitable short line would be one with only a half to a dozen, good revenue customers on a five mile piece of railroad, with no interlockings, bridges, few grades, few curves, few road crossings, few switches, leased locomotive, no passenger service and connected with a couple of great Class 1 carriers. Not much to model but likely a good money maker. 

Barry 

There are a couple old rules

There are a couple old rules of thumb when it comes to shortline railroad economics, namely that in order to remain viable a shortline annually must move 100 cars and be spending $5,000 in track maintenance cost for each mile of track operated.  Then on top of that you have to start to account for costs to upgrade track and infrastructure to handle ever increasing car sizes and weights.  There are many examples of shortline railroads that did not grasp these basic principles, or seriously misjudged their cost structures, or spent a whole lot of money on cosmetic things like locomotive paint.   

My suggestion would be to roughly decide what era you want to model, then start doing some background research on what kinds of rail served industries are in those areas.  Anything after roughly 1986, you can't go wrong with CF-7s or ATSF rebuilt GP-7us from Athearn or one of the GP-10/GP-16s from Intermountain.  There were still plenty of Alcos still running around in the early to middle 1980s, and a few Baldwins.  No shortage of ideas and inspirations out there!

Jeff Moore

Elko, NV 

1980 vs 2020

@ Jeff - That early power is very appealing for sure!

One of the reasons I started the thread was to focus on the period of 1980ish vs the modern short line regional explosion. Currently with Class 1s sheading another round of branches etc for the PSR method we see some really interesting railroads starting up. Its a great time to model..

Flash back 40yrs and a very similar thing was going on, before YouTube and before digital cameras and web based photo sharing sites this cool period in railroad was documented but not to the extent of the current. 

So before I started a freelance short line based off 2021 I wanted to feel out what was going on in 1980-ish

Little Rock & Western

The Little Rock & Western, LR&W, would be a great short line to model!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_and_Western_Railway

The LR&W was a short line started by Green Bay Packaging Company after the Rock Island line that served them was abandoned after Rock Island ceased operations in 1980.  The line runs west from Little Rock, Arkansas to Danville, Arkansas.  (79-80 miles)

Before being bought out by the G&W in 2005, the railroad’s signature power was two low-nose ALCO C420s.  The railroad would interchange with the Union Pacific at UPs North Little Rock, Arkansas yard.  The Santa Fe Railroad had trackage rights on the LR&W to reach a customer.  Normally the Santa Fe ran at night although on occasion you could see it early to late morning.

Joe  

Nittany and Bald Eagle

The Nittany and Bald Eagle was founded in 1984 to take over Conrail's (ex PRR) Bald Eagle Branch. The entire North Shore System (which the NBER is part of) was founded is response to Conrail's unloading of branches in the 1980s in central PA. 

Little Rock & Western

Musgrovejb, just curious as to how the Santa Fe found its way into operating in Arkansas, BNSF yes, but Santa Fe?

PA - the short line state!

At one time Pennsylvania was called the short line state. 

As you can see from this thread there were quite a few here, many more that were actual steam era short lines as well. The 1990s brought another boom to the state as Conrail went through another round of selling off clusters. 

RJC in Clearfield,  AVR SWP around Pittsburgh were born in the 1990s

Back to the 1980s we saw two significant players come to life. RBMN and the B&P (BP from B&O/CSXT lines)

FJ&G RR

The Fonda Johnstown & Gloversville Railroad could fit this scenario..   Upstate NY...  The line was built to service industries that were beginning north of Fonda (along the famous NYC Mohawk Valley corridor...) and with hopes of  eventually entering the Adirondack Park to tap the massive summer tourist business that was appearing in the late 1800's.  (Along the lines of Durant's quest to compete with the NYC and their Adirondack line that ran to Lake Placid, north from Utica)   This small RR ended up creating its own famous amusement park called Sacandaga Park named for the Southern Adirondack river and later a man made Lake that covered much of this area in 1930. 

The railroad shared revenue with the NYC and its station in Fonda....And also the revenue from some of its large pullman cars that were brought up from Fonda for summer trains that ran from all over the northern part of the state for weekend excursions to Sacandaga Park in Northville NY.  The RR thrived and even expanded into, two track, high speed Electric service to Schenectady and the massive GE manufacturing plant there.  Hundreds of workers rode the bullet cars to and from work some 30 miles each away.  Many stories of Steam Engines, Automobiles and the Electric Interurbans racing through the valley in the 1920's and 30's.

This RR, like so many others,  saw the dwindling manufacturing business (my area thrived on) as our govt seemed to encourage overseas products and did not protect in any way at all the workers at the ports as they could have..... and then, with the added stress of bigger and better trucks and automobiles and tax payer funded road systems constantly improving, by the 1960's when I grew up playing along these tracks the RR had scrapped all the steam and barley could pay the bills...they only used the two Alco S2's they bought, brand new, in 1945 and for a while they even painted up and ran a GE 44 tonner that had many problems.  The railroad gave up in the 1970's.   Then n the early 1980's, Walter Rich of the Delaware and Otsego and Cooperstown and Charlottseville Railway bought the right of way to this rr and man other short lines that had gone belly up......  The truth is he was looking to rake in the lucrative money from the governments railroad revitalization projects to restore rail power and needed to own some railroads to tap the funds.   He got the FJ&G cheap.  I could be wrong but I  believe it became part of his "Delaware and Otsego System" 

Walter did manage to get the Lake Placid line redone (with some serious problems) for the 1980 Olympics..(we taxpayers paid a fortune for him to do that btw)  and he did upgrade the railbed and crossings for the FJ&G but the business was never really there.   As the money he could tap ran out the railroad struggled as long as it could and died its second death sometime ten years or so later.  The old S-2's were sold the 44 tonner with all its problems is still working somewhere.. (forget where now) and there are many pictures of the beautifully painted Alco RS3's lettered for the "Adirondack Railroad" and that Lake Placid run he brought to the Gloversville engine yard hide from the repossession company.

Randy 

The Turtle Creek Industrial Railroad

The Turtle Creek Industrial Railroad is a pretty good example. It started in 1982 when it took over Conrail's Turtle Creek Valley line running from Trafford, PA to Export, PA. The main customer and owner of the line was Dura Bond Steel, a steel coatings company that shipped out coated steel products. Other customers included a couple lumber yards and some other small businesses. They interchanged with Conrail and later Norfolk Southern at Trafford, PA. The shortline would unfortunately shut down in the summer of 2009 when a severe storm flooded their mainline and the railroad just wasn't making enough money due to declining carloads and customers over the years. One of their engines still serves the company at Dura-Bond's facility in Duquesne,PA. While their old caboose has been repainted in Pennsylvania railroad colors and serves as a historical display along the right of way which has been converted into a bike trail. 

RJ Corman was started in the

RJ Corman was started in the 70's, and now have 17 different railroads all over the US. I've even seen someone that made HO engines for them, but I don't remember which company it was.

Here's a link to their website. https://www.rjcorman.com/

Joe

Something besides coal in the mountains

After the Staggers Act the State of West Virginia bought a 52 mile long branch line that was spun off from the B&O and created the South Branch Valley Railroad that still runs from the mainline just outside of Cumberland, Maryland to the small town of Petersburg in West Virginia. 

Traffic is mainly grain, lumber products, lime, CO2, plastic pellets, and damaged rolling stock from the now CSX mainline to a repair shop at the end of the line. All of this is pulled by GP9's (one still in Chessie System paint), SD9's, a GP38, ex-Army MRS1's, S4's and I believe a GE 44 ton loco.

There's even a privately owned excursion train with C&O and B&O painted F units that runs on the weekends.

The fun thing about a lot of 1980's created shortlines is that most of them had the "do whatever it takes to make it work" mentality so you could get away with just about anything on your model.

-Ben

70s not 80s but with a twist

Two items of interest I recently stumbled upon regarding short line railroading.

1. https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-rail-overview

Short line modeling has a lot of leeway. Information at the link shows there are currently 7 class I railroads, 22 regionals, and 584 short lines operating across the US. That's a lot of lines to copy or from which to get freelance inspiration.

2. Crab Orchard & Egyptian Railroad

The other day I was driving along the old Little Rock and Western line reported by  musgrovejb in this thread. I saw an old GP painted for Arkansas Midland so I don't know the story there but I also saw some nice new boxcars stenciled COER.

Not that I know a lot of railroad reporting marks but I definitely did not know that one. It turns out to be this line:

https://www.progressiverail.com/rrcoer/coer.html

So that is a cool name that interchanges with both BNSF and UP; and ran their freight ops with steam until 1986 when they got their first diesel.

https://www.mihp.org/2013/02/crab-orchard-egyptian-railroad/

A whole new take on steam to diesel transition era.

MEC Fan

Sorry for the late response. Conrail discontinued the secondary line cutting of ties to the Everett Railroad in 82 forcing abandonment. The company was revived in 84 when it acquired part of Conrail's Bedford Secondary between Brooks Mill & Sproul.