The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was so named because it was established in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midwest, along with the intermediate cities of Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Syracuse. New York Central was headquartered in New York City's New York Central Building, adjacent to its largest station, Grand Central Terminal.
The Erie Lackawanna Railway, known as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad until 1968, was formed from the 1960 merger of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The official motto of the line was "The Friendly Service Route".
The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833 and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, primarily along the south shore of Lake Erie and across northern Indiana. The line's trackage is still used as a major rail transportation corridor and hosts Amtrak passenger trains, with the ownership in 1998 split at Cleveland between CSX to the east, and Norfolk Southern in the west.
Conrail, formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name and it continues to do business as an asset management and network services provider in three Shared Assets Areas that were excluded from the division of its operations during its acquisition by CSX Corporation and the Norfolk Southern Railway.
The Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway is a Class II regional railroad that provides freight service, mainly in the U.S. state of Ohio. It took its name from the former Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway, most of which it bought from the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1990.
The Cleveland Short Line Railway is a freight bypass around southern Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. A quasi-independent railroad organized by major shareholders of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, the shortline was intended to allow the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern to bypass the congested railroads in downtown Cleveland. The Cleveland Short Line has had a succession of owners, and is currently part of CSX Transportation.
The Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway was a major part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system, extending the PRR west from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, via Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Chicago, Illinois. It included the current Norfolk Southern-owned Fort Wayne Line east of Crestline, Ohio, to Pittsburgh, and the Fort Wayne Secondary, owned by CSX, from Crestline west to Tolleston in Gary, Indiana. CSX leased its entire portion in 2004 to the Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad (CFE). The remaining portion of the line from Tolleston into Chicago is now part of the Norfolk Southern's Chicago District, with a small portion of the original PFW&C trackage abandoned in favor of the parallel lines of former competitors which are now part of the modern NS system.
The Porter Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the Chicago, Illinois, area. Formerly a part of the main line of the Michigan Central Railroad, it now connects CSX's former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line and the Chicago Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad from the east with the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad towards Blue Island, Illinois.
The Brighton Park crossing is a major railroad crossing in Chicago, Illinois, hosting three major freight railroads. The crossing is northwest of the intersection of Western Avenue and Archer Avenue, in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The railroads involved in the crossing are CSX, Canadian National and Norfolk Southern. The crossing consists of the CN's two-track Joliet Subdivision in a roughly east–west orientation intersecting five north–south tracks operated by NS and CSX. Collectively, these railroads operate approximately 80 trains per day through the crossing. The junction is visible from the CTA Orange Line trains that pass on an elevated structure immediately southeast of the crossing.
The Ohio Connecting Railroad Bridge is a steel bridge which crosses the Ohio River at Brunot's Island at the west end of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It consists of two major through truss spans over the main and back channels of the river, of 508 feet (155 m) and 406 feet (124 m) respectively, with deck truss approaches.
Cleveland has been and continues to be deeply rooted in railroad history.
The Port Perry Branch is a rail line owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The line runs from the Pittsburgh Line in North Versailles Township southwest through the Port Perry Tunnel and across the Monongahela River on the PRR Port Perry Bridge to the Mon Line in Duquesne along a former Pennsylvania Railroad line.
The Fort Wayne Line and Fort Wayne Secondary is a rail line owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad (CFE), and CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. The line runs from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, west via Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Gary, Indiana, along what was once the Pennsylvania Railroad's Pittsburgh to Chicago main line.
The Indiana Northeastern Railroad is a Class III short line freight railroad operating on nearly 130 miles (210 km) in southern lower Michigan, northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio. The Indiana Northeastern Railroad Company began operations in December 1992 and is an independent privately owned company. As of 2017 the railroad hauled more than 7,000 carloads per year. Commodities moved by the railroad include corn, soybeans, wheat and flour. It also handles plastics, fiberboard, aluminum, copper, coal, perlite, stone, lumber, glass, rendering products, as well as agricultural fertilizers and chemicals.
The Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad is a short line railroad offering service from Tolleston, Indiana to Crestline, Ohio, United States over the former Fort Wayne Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It began operations in 2004 as a division of the Central Railroad of Indianapolis (CERA), under the overall corporate ownership of RailAmerica. CFE operates 273 miles (439 km) of rail leased from CSX.
The Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad was a short-line railroad subsidiary of the Indiana Boxcar Corporation 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 following is a brief history of the North American rail system, mainly through major changes to Class I railroads, the largest class by operating revenue.
The Pittsburgh Line is the Norfolk Southern Railway's primary east–west artery in its Pittsburgh Division and Harrisburg Division across the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and is part of the Keystone Corridor, Amtrak-Norfolk Southern's combined rail corridor.
The Lehigh Line is a railroad line in central New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania. It is owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway. The line runs west from the vicinity of the Port of New York and New Jersey to the Susquehanna River valley at the south end of the Wyoming Valley Coal Region. Administratively it is part of Norfolk Southern's Keystone Division (Harrisburg) and is also part of the Crescent Corridor. As of 2021 the line is freight-only, although there are perennial proposals to restore passenger service over all or part of the line.
