Berkshire and Eastern Railroad (B&E) is a

shortline 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 ...

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, using tracks owned by

Pan Am Southern Pan Am Southern, LLC is a freight railroad jointly owned by Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) and CSX Corporation subsidiary Pan Am Railways (PAR). After the June 2022 acquisition of PAR by CSX, PAS will be independently operated by the Berkshire ...

. Pan Am Southern is jointly owned by

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. ...

(CSXT) and

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...

(NS). Following CSXT's purchase of

Pan Am Systems Pan Am Systems was a privately held company, privately held Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based Florida corporation composed of rail transport, manufacturing and energy, transportation related brands, and real estate divisions. It formerly held a no ...

, CSXT and NS chose

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 ...

(GWI) to operate Pan Am Southern. GWI, in turn, selected its

Pittsburg and Shawmut Railroad The Pittsburg and Shawmut Railroad , also known as the Shawmut Line, was a short line railroad company operating passenger and freight service on standard gauge track in central and southwestern Pennsylvania. Since 2004, it has been operated as ...

(PSR) subsidiary to operate Pan Am Southern. PSR — doing business as Berkshire & Eastern — will operate, maintain, and market the Pan Am Southern freight rail lines previously operated by

Pan Am Railways Pan Am Railways, Inc. (PAR) is a subsidiary of CSX Corporation that operates Class II regional railroads covering northern New England from Mattawamkeag, Maine, to Rotterdam Junction, New York. Pan Am Railways is primarily made up of former Clas ...

Surface Transportation Board The Surface Transportation Board (STB) of the United States is a federal, bipartisan, independent adjudicatory board. The STB was established on January 1, 1996, to assume some of the regulatory functions that had been administered by the Intersta ...

approval of the formation and operation of B&E was contingent on the Board's approval of CSXT's purchase of Pan Am Systems. The Board approved the CSXT–Pan Am deal on April 14, 2022. A start date for B&E operation of Pan Am Southern has not yet been set.

References

{{Connecticut railroads Vermont railroads Massachusetts railroads New York (state) railroads Connecticut railroads Genesee & Wyoming Railway companies established in 2022 Norfolk Southern Railway Spin-offs of Pan Am Railways CSX Transportation