The Cleveland Terminal Subdivision is a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

line 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. ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. The line runs from a point northeast of downtown

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

southwest to downtown along the 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 ...

main line. At its east end, known as CP-175 by

, the Cleveland Terminal Subdivision and the Short Line Subdivision come together and become the

Erie West Subdivision The Erie West Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Pennsylvania and Ohio. The line runs from Derby, New York southwest along the shore of Lake Erie to Cleveland, Ohio, along the former New York Central R ...

. Through freights diverge at this location onto the Short Line Subdivision to bypass downtown Cleveland. The west end of the Cleveland Terminal Subdivision is at a junction 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 ...

's Cleveland Line and Chicago Line, a point called CP-181 by the railroad. The Cleveland Terminal Subdivision is principally used by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

Lake Shore Limited The ''Lake Shore Limited'' is an overnight Amtrak intercity rail, intercity passenger train that runs between Chicago and either New York City or Boston via two Section (rail transport), sections east of Albany, New York, Albany. The train bega ...

to access Cleveland Lakefront Station, however local freights and coal trains occasionally use the line as well. Though downgraded and single-tracked, the Cleveland Terminal Subdivision still has its Traffic Control System in place. The line is dispatched from CSX's "G" desk at their dispatching office in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

History

The line was built by the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad and opened in 1851. , March 2005 Edition Through mergers, leases, and takeovers, it became part of the

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway 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 ...

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

and

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 ...

. When Conrail was broken up in 1999, the main line east of downtown Cleveland, including the Cleveland Terminal Subdivision, was assigned to CSX.

References

CSX Transportation lines Rail infrastructure in Ohio Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway lines Rail transportation in Cleveland {{Ohio-transport-stub