The Gloster Southern Railroad was a United States

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 ...

that operated in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

and

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. The GLSR began operation in 1990 and provided freight service from

Gloster, Mississippi Gloster is a town in central Amite County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 897 at the 2020 census. History Gloster was incorporated on March 11, 1884. It was largely founded as a railroad town. Gloster was named after the enginee ...

, to the

Illinois Central Railroad The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the Central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line also co ...

(now

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN i ...

- CN) interchange at

Slaughter, Louisiana Slaughter is a town in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 997 at the 2010 U.S. census, down from 1,011 at the 2000 U.S. census. At the 2020 population estimates program, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated 882 people ...

. The line was owned by

Georgia-Pacific Georgia-Pacific LLC is an American pulp and paper company based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is one of the world's largest manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp, paper, toilet and paper towel dispensers, packaging, building products and r ...

(GP) which had purchased and refurbished of an abandoned branch line to provide service to a GP oakwood mill in Gloster. The GLSR operated four or five freight trains per week until the plant closed in December 2002. One year later,

Genesee and Wyoming Inc 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 ...

acquired three short-line railroads from GP. However, this sale did not include the GLSR. In September 2004, GP announced that they would re-open the Gloster oakwood mill. However, they did not continue to operate the GLSR. The McComb Enterprise Journal reported on April 2, 2008, that the Georgia-Pacific Corporation is closing its railroad and that the town of Gloster was interested in the rail bed. The Gloster Southern Railroad applied to discontinue service on its entire line in December 2009, and crews began removing the railway and roadbed. By June 2013, it was reported that all of the track had been moved and sold for recycle.

Equipment

References

* American Shortline Railway Guide, 5th Edition, p135 * * * * * Louisiana railroads Mississippi railroads Spin-offs of the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad Companies operating former Illinois Central Railroad lines {{Mississippi-transport-stub