Looking at all the names Lionel, MTH and rest reproduce I tend to forget what companies are still in business.
I know BNSF and NS, but what other companies are still out there??
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The "Big Four" in the US really are UP, CSX, BNSF, NS. You could also argue for Canadian Pacific as well.
I'm no expert, but In addition to the big four, I imagine there still are quite a few regional short lines, some small, some a bit bigger, Indiana Railway comes to mind ( MTH just released it )
Add Kansas City Southern, Amtrak, and Canadian National to the big ones in the US.
You also have smaller companies including FEC, Providence and Worcester, The Long Island Railroad,New England Central, New York and Atlantic, Susquehanna railroad to name a few. Some of these have been around quite a while and have gone by the same name for many years. For example, The Long Island Railroad name has been in continuous use by the railroad for 179 years, longer than any other railroad in the US
Is there a good source to show what fallen flags have been rolled up into the current Big 4 without having to go through the web on each RR? Some are easy guesses like like BN and SF being part of BNSF, but I'd like to know what happened to Wabash, etc.
wikipedia may be the easiest place to start. Beware some of the information may not be 100% accurate.
Wabash is now part of Norfolk Southern.
The Long Island Rail Road (note the spelling of the last two words -- it's not "railroad") also hosts on its own rails the New York & Atlantic Railway, a freight contractor that has its own locomotives and crews, and sneaks around during off-peak times, avoiding the LIRR's passenger trains. It delivers freight to Long Island locations. Lumber and propane are two of the commodities that it delivers.
Here's an interesting site that lists all the Class III roads.
http://www.american-rails.com/...-railroad-guide.html
CONRAIL
I'm not a fan of Wikipedia, but this link is probably as good as any as a starting point:
Originally Posted by raising4daughters:
Is there a good source to show what fallen flags have been rolled up into the current Big 4 without having to go through the web on each RR? Some are easy guesses like like BN and SF being part of BNSF, but I'd like to know what happened to Wabash, etc.
Yes there is. Somebody posted a link to an ms word document with a real neat chart once before on here and I saved it to my hard drive. It is attached below.
HTH,
Bill
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I model CSX/Chessie and its predecessors, and I've found this link to be a very detailed and comprehensive reference (for CSX anyway). Its been quite helpful as I've tried to add at least one piece of stock from each of these roads to my layout.
Look up each major railroad, then go to history of the road if on Wikipedia.
I know that in eastern Pennsylvania the Reading & Northern is operating as a regional RR. Reading Lines(the freight carrier) went into Conrail and then a lot of their freight cars went to Norfolk Southern. Not sure who got Reading Company's (passenger side of Reading RR)equipment, maybe Amtrak?
Lee F.
I thought SEPTA took over the Reading Passenger operations when Conrail was formed.
Conrail is the operating company jointly owned by CSX and NS to operate what are referred to as shared asset areas in Northern New Jersey; the Philadelphia area; and the Detroit area.
The shared asset areas were established at the time of the Conrail split to preserve competitive rail service in these metro areas.
Curt
Curt
Thank you for the info on current Conrail operation.
Originally Posted by Jeff T:
Looking at all the names Lionel, MTH and rest reproduce I tend to forget what companies are still in business.
I know BNSF and NS, but what other companies are still out there??
BNSF "still out there"? NS? Both "relatively" new. What do you mean? What connection to Lionel and MTH are we talking about? Lionel has been around for ages though BNSF has not.
/Mitch
Alaska Railroad, since 1914.
I believe the 7-8 remaining class I railroads (railroads producing over $250 million in operating revenue) are: Canadian Pacific(14,000 miles), Union Pacific(31,000 miles), CSX(21,000 miles), Norfolk Southern(20,000 miles), Burlington Northern Santa Fe(31,000 miles), Canadian National(50,000 miles), and Kansas City Southern(6,000 miles). Oh, don't forget Amtrack.
I checked a couple of my books, and wikipedia and the information seems accurate. These roads are also some of the most modeled by manufactures Of course, older railroads are popular to model as well.
What people tend to forget about is that there are many Class II and Class III railroads that don't get a lot of publicity. There are over a dozen within 100 miles of my midwestern town. Two of which Dakota Minnesota & Eastern and Iowa Chicago Eastern were bought a few years ago by CP rail.
Penn Central just got out of the railroad business when on December 6, 2006, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board approved the sale of several of American Financial Group's(Penn Central Corporation's new name) remaining railroad assets to Midtown TDR Ventures LLC for approximately US$ 80 million.
Genesse & Wyoming has the largest collection of short line RRs in the US. If you added them all up what their total trackage be?
Here in Florida there are three major railroads that operate; CSX, Norfolk Southern and FEC. Amtrak runs over CSX line from Jacksonville FL thru the center of the state near Sebring and Okeechobee then back east to West Palm Beach and Miami.
FEC is schedualed to operate passenger service sometime in 2014 from Orlando FL to Miami, over FEC tracks.
Lee F.
The large rails are BNSF, UP, NS and CSX. You have a ton of regional railroads with some being large and some being small. If you want a list of all the shortlines in the US you can go to the ASLRRA site and search state by state.
The Wabash was merged along with the NKP into the N&W in 64.Now if you want a family history most of the large railroads have that on their home pages. Some are proud of their history ( see NS and its heritage units and UP with its steam) and have a lot of info out there.
