Camp Chase Railroad locomotives -7225 and -7042

The Camp Chase Railway is a short-line

switching and terminal railroad A switching and terminal railroad is a freight railroad company whose primary purpose is to perform local switching services or to own and operate a terminal facility. Switching is a type of operation done within the limits of a yard. It genera ...

in and near

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

, United States, running past the former

Camp Chase Camp Chase was a military staging and training camp established in Columbus, Ohio in May 1861 after the start of the American Civil War. It also included a large Union-operated prison camp for Confederate prisoners during the American Civil War ...

. The line was owned by Indiana Boxcar Corporation from 2015 to 2019, and by

Midwest and Bluegrass Rail The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

since. It was previously known as Camp Chase Railroad and was owned by Carload Express, Inc. when it acquired a former

New York Central Railroad 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 Midw ...

line between Columbus and Lilly Chapel from

Conrail 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. It continues to do busin ...

in 1994. Through

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 ...

, the CCRA interchanges with the

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 ...

at Buckeye Yard. CCRA owns three

EMD GP9 The EMD GP9 is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division between 1954 and 1959. The GP9 succeeded the GP7 as the second model of EMD's General Purpose (GP) line, incorporating a new sixteen-cylind ...

engines, numbers 7042, 7076, and 7225, which are painted orange and black, with white "Camp Chase" lettering, and an older orange and white engine, number 752 with orange "Camp Chase Railway" lettering.

History

The Columbus, Springfield and Cincinnati Railroad opened the line between Columbus and

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1872, and it became part of the

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, also known as the Big Four Railroad and commonly abbreviated CCC&StL, was a railroad company in the Midwestern United States. It operated in affiliation with the New York Central system. ...

's (Big Four's) main line west from Columbus to

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

and later part of the

. The

Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

shifted traffic to the ex-

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

line between Columbus and London, and the portion of the old Big Four line west of Lilly Chapel was not included in

in 1976. The remainder was kept as a minor branch line, the Camp Chase Industrial Track. On October 11, 1994, the new Camp Chase Industrial Railroad bought the line from Conrail. Camp Chase Railroad Engine no 752

The Camp Chase Industrial Railroad has been marketed under the name Camp Chase Railroad beginning around 2009. On September 30, 2015, Carload Express, Inc. announced that its Camp Chase Railroad Company has sold its line of railroad to Camp Chase Railway Company, LLC; a wholly owned subsidiary of Indiana Boxcar Corporation. Camp Chase Railway ("CAMY") assumed operations of the 14-mile rail line, which runs from Columbus to Lilly Chapel, Ohio, beginning on Thursday October 1, 2015. Most of CAMY freight revenue comes from grain being transported along the rails going either to some of the

grain elevators A grain elevator is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposi ...

along the track, or to be interchanged with NS at the Buckeye Yard. The Camp Chase Railroad was featured on the COLUMBUS NEIGHBORHOODS Columbus' Railroad History on November 16, 2017. Camp Chase was One of four shortlines bought by Midwest & Bluegrass Rail LLC of Kansas City in September 2020

References

External links

Camp Chase Railway - Indiana BoxcarCamp Chase Railway - Midwest & Bluegrass Rail
{{DEFAULTSORT:Camp Chase Industrial Railroad Ohio railroads Railway companies established in 1994 Switching and terminal railroads Spin-offs of Conrail 1994 establishments in Ohio

History

See also

References

External links