Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad

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Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad
Overview
Headquarters
standard gauge

The Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad (

short-line railroad subsidiary of Midwest & Bluegrass Rail that operates freight trains between Youngstown, Ohio and Darlington, Pennsylvania, United States. The line is owned by the Columbiana County Port Authority, leased to the Eastern States Railroad, which is owned by the line's primary shipper, and contracted out to the YSRR. Freight is interchanged with CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway
at the Youngstown end.

The trackage was originally owned by the Youngstown and Southern Railway (

electric interurban passenger railway between 1907 and 1948, being the last such line in Ohio.[2] It was later jointly owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad and Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. After a local company bought the line in November 1996 and illegally closed it and blocked repairs,[3][4] the line was out of service for almost five years until the Central Columbiana and Pennsylvania Railway (reporting mark CQPA) began operations in May 2001.[5] Service under the YSRR name started in 2006, after the second of two less-than-two-year periods of operation by the Ohio Central Railroad System component Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark OHPA) (the first was in 1995 and 1996). The Indiana Boxcar Corporation
then owned the line until 2019.

Line description

The YSRR begins in southern

New Galilee.[7]

History

20th century

The Youngstown and Southern Railway (Y&S) and Youngstown and Salem Railroad were both incorporated in May 1903,

interurban railway, the company handled freight, primarily coal from the electric Y&OR and the steam Pittsburgh, Lisbon and Western Railroad (PL&W). After the Y&S entered receivership in 1915, a 1916 reorganization produced the Youngstown and Suburban Railway.[2]

In the late 1920s and early 1930s,

private railroad from the river at Smiths Ferry, Pennsylvania to the PL&W at Negley, Ohio, where it connected to Youngstown through control, by its Montour Railroad subsidiary, of the PL&W (New Galilee, Pennsylvania to Lisbon, Ohio) and Y&S (the latter acquired in 1928[2]), and construction of a line between the PL&W at Signal and the Y&S at Columbiana. (The PL&W from Signal west to Lisbon was subsequently abandoned.) Large amounts of coal were shipped along the river from the mines to Smiths Ferry, and then over the rail line to Youngstown steel mills.[10][11] The Y&S changed its name back to Youngstown and Southern Railway in 1944,[2] and on January 1, 1945 it merged the PL&W into itself.[12]

After

New Galilee, was also abandoned then.[13] By 1960 the Y&S had completely dieselized.[2] After the Penn Central Transportation Company (successor to the NYC and PRR) declared bankruptcy in 1970, the newly independent profitable P&LE acquired full control of the Montour, and with it the Y&S.[citation needed
]

The P&LE's finances declined with those of the

Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 22, 1996.[16] When the O&P declined to purchase the leased trackage from the Y&S, the owner sold it to Railroad Ventures, Inc. (RVI) on November 8. RVI immediately, illegally,[4] canceled the lease, forcing the O&P to issue an embargo, a process intended for a temporary cessation of service. After shippers complained,[4] the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) investigated, and the O&P and RVI negotiated a new lease agreement in early December. But only two weeks later, the line was washed out by flooding, and the O&P issued a second embargo on December 18.[17]

RVI belatedly filed with the STB for authorization to purchase the line in January 1997, but it was rejected because RVI did not acknowledge its

escrow fund set up for this purpose, and the STB ordered the money transferred directly to the CCPA in November 2001.[4]

21st century

CCPA acquired the line from RVI on January 24, 2001,

Darlington.[21] Although it had increased its business to serve 9 customers, the CQPA, and its parent Arkansas Short Line Railroads, suffered from cash flow problems, which limited its ability to make repairs to handle the increased traffic, and it filed for bankruptcy in June 2004.[22][23] The Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad resumed temporary operations in December 2004,[24] but decided not to continue the lease upon the conclusion of the bankruptcy proceedings. Total Waste Logistics, the line's primary customer, formed the Eastern States Railroad[25] and acquired the lease in November 2006.[26] Simultaneously, the Eastern States Railroad contracted with the Indiana Boxcar Corporation, which created a new subsidiary, the Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad, to operate the line.[27]

In 2000, when the

Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act
, it created a three-part test for deciding whether a non-operating lessor, which still retains the residual common-carrier obligation if the lessee ceases operations, is a covered employer. For the company to pass this "Railroad Ventures test", and therefore not be covered, the following must all be true:

  1. The primary business purpose of the company is not to profit from railroad activities.
  2. The company does not operate its line or retain that capacity.
  3. The operator of the line is or would be a covered employer.

Since RVI's primary purpose was to profit from selling off the line, it failed the test.

Pennsylvania Lines, LLC covered (since it was wholly owned by Conrail, a for-profit carrier, and thus presumed to be for-profit).[31]

In 2019, Indiana Boxcar transferred their Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad to Midwest and Bluegrass Rail.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ "Contact".
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-8047-4014-3
    , p. 270
  3. ^
    Traffic World, Stretched Too Thin
    , July 10, 2000
  4. ^ a b c d e f STB Docket No. AB-556 (Sub-No. 2X), April 28, 2008
  5. ^
    Business Journal
    , CC&PA Railroad Makes Cargo Delivery Tomorrow, May 30, 2001
  6. ^ Railroad Switching District: Youngstown Ohio, January 25, 1934
  7. USGS topographic maps, accessed December 2008 via ACME Mapper
  8. ^ Ohio Secretary of State, Annual Report for the Year Ending Nov. 15, 1903, p. 811
  9. New York Times, General Business Items
    , October 6, 1903, p. 12
  10. ^
    ISBN 0-87095-080-0
    , pp. 92-94
  11. ^ a b Pennsylvania Railroad Board of Directors, Inspection of Physical Property, November 1948, pp. 122-128
  12. ^
    Kalmbach Publishing
    , American Short Line Railway Guide, 5th Edition, 1996, p. 233
  13. ^ Interstate Commerce Commission, Finance Docket No. 16126, 1948 (abandonment of Darlington-New Galilee and Columbiana-Leetonia)
  14. Kalmbach Publishing, Fallen Flags: P-S
    , accessed December 2008
  15. ^ STB Docket No. AB-476 (Sub-No. 1X), August 5, 1996
  16. ^ Railroad Retirement Board, Employer Status Determination: Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Properties, Inc., October 29, 2003
  17. ^ STB Finance Docket No. 33385 and Docket No. 41991, July 15, 1997
  18. ^ STB Docket No. AB-556 (Sub-No. 2X) and Finance Docket No. 33385, October 4, 2000
  19. ^ Docket No. AB-556 (Sub-No. 2X), December 13, 2004
  20. ^ STB Finance Docket No. 33817, December 23, 1999
  21. ^ Railpace Newsmagazine, Lake Shore Shorts, October 2001, p. 33
  22. Lisbon Morning Journal
    , Four Companies Interested in Rail Operation, June 22, 2004
  23. East Liverpool Review
    , June 22, 2004
  24. ^ STB Finance Docket No. 34632, December 21, 2004
  25. ^ Ohio Rail Development Commission, Minutes, January 11, 2007, pp. 2-3
  26. ^ STB Finance Docket No. 34934, December 21, 2006
  27. ^ STB Finance Docket No. 34962, December 21, 2006
  28. ^ Railroad Retirement Board, Employer Status Determination: Railroad Ventures, Inc., Decision on Reconsideration, November 7, 2000
  29. ^ Railroad Retirement Board, Employer Status Determination: Railroad Ventures, Inc., 1998
  30. ^ Railroad Retirement Board, Employer Status Determination: Eastern States Railroad, LLC, March 13, 2008
  31. ^ Railroad Retirement Board, Employer Status Determination: Pennsylvania Lines, LLC, March 28, 2001
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