The Bay Line Railroad is one of several

short line railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

companies owned by

Genesee & Wyoming Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W) is an American short line railroad holding company, that owns or maintains an interest in 122 railroads in the United States, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom and formerly Australia. It operates ...

Inc. It operates between

Panama City, Florida Panama City is a city in and the county seat of Bay County, Florida, United States. Located along U.S. Highway 98 (US 98), it is the largest city between Tallahassee and Pensacola. It is the more populated city of the Panama City–Lynn Ha ...

, and

Dothan, Alabama Dothan () is a city in Dale, Henry, and Houston counties and the Houston county seat in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is Alabama's eighth-largest city, with a population of 71,072 at the 2020 census. It is near the state's southeastern corner, ...

, including a branch from

Grimes Claire Elise Boucher (; born March 17, 1988), known professionally as Grimes, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Her early work has been described as extending from "lo-fi R&B" to futuristic dance-pop, and has in ...

Abbeville, Alabama Abbeville is a city in and the county seat of Henry County, in the southeast part of Alabama, United States. It is part of the Dothan, Alabama Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2020 census, the population was 2,358. It is the first city al ...

, reached via

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may con ...

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

's Dothan Subdivision between

Dothan Dothan is a place-name from the Hebrew Bible, identified with Tel Dothan. It may refer to: * Dothan, Alabama, a city in Dale, Henry, and Houston counties in the U.S. state of Alabama * Dani Dothan, lyricist and vocalist for the Israeli rock and ne ...

and

. The line interchanges with the

Florida Gulf & Atlantic Railroad The Florida Gulf and Atlantic Railroad is a Class III railroad owned and operated by RailUSA in the Florida Panhandle. The line consists of 373 miles (600 km) of track running from Baldwin, Florida (just west of Jacksonville) west through Tallah ...

Cottondale, Florida Cottondale is a town in Jackson County, Florida, United States. The population was 933 at the 2010 census, up from 869 at the 2000 census. Cottondale has a police force of four to five sworn officers; the police chief is Willam Watford. Cotton ...

, and with the

Dothan Subdivision The Dothan Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Georgia and Alabama. The line runs from Thomasville, Georgia, to Montgomery, Alabama, for a distance of . History What is now the Dothan ...

near Dothan, Alabama. It also interchanges with the

Chattahoochee Bay Railroad The Chattahoochee and Gulf Railroad was a short line railroad operating from 2003 to 2006 between Columbus, Georgia and Dothan, Alabama, on former Central of Georgia and Norfolk Southern tracks. Initially the railroad was a subsidiary of Gulf ...

in Dothan. A wide variety of commodities is carried, including aggregates, brick, cement, chemicals, coal, food and feed products, forest products, metallic ores and minerals, steel, and scrap.

History

The company's main line between Panama City and Dothan was constructed in 1906–1908 by the

Atlanta and St. Andrews Bay Railroad The Atlanta and St. Andrews Bay Railroad , also known as the Bay Line, was a Class I railroad which operated in Alabama and Florida. The company was founded in 1906 and opened its mainline between Dothan, Alabama, and Panama City, Florida, in 1908. ...

(ASAB). The Abbeville branch was constructed in 1887–1893 by the

Alabama Midland Railway The Alabama Midland Railway was incorporated in Alabama and Georgia in 1887, and built a line from Bainbridge, Georgia, to a point near Montgomery, Alabama. The route was completed in 1890. It became part of the Plant System in 1894, and in 1901 i ...

and came under the control of the

Atlantic Coast Line Railroad The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad was a United States Class I railroad formed in 1900, though predecessor railroads had used the ACL brand since 1871. In 1967 it merged with long-time rival Seaboard Air Line Railroad to form the Seaboard Coast L ...

in 1902.

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

, eventual successor to the ACL, sold the line to the Abbeville–Grimes Railway Company (AG) in 1989. This company was merged with the Bay Line Railroad on June 26, 1996. The Stone Container Corporation had owned the ASAB since 1987. Effective January 1, 1994, it sold the assets of the railroad to

Rail Management Corporation Durden Enterprises II Inc - Formally Rail Management Corporation (RMC), based in Panama City Beach, Florida, was a holding company of short line railroads in the southeastern United States. History On May 26, 2005, Genesee and Wyoming (G&W) ...

, which created the new Bay Line Railroad company to operate it.

acquired all the assets of Rail Management on June 1, 2005, including the Bay Line Railroad.

Notes

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bay Line Railroad Alabama railroads Florida railroads Railway companies established in 1994 Genesee & Wyoming