The Grenada Railroad (reporting mark GRYR) is a 228-mile long (290 km)

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 runs from

Southaven, Mississippi Southaven is a city in DeSoto County, Mississippi, United States. It is a principal city in Greater Memphis. The 2020 census reported a population of 54,648, making Southaven the third-largest city in Mississippi and the second most populous ...

to Canton, Mississippi, along the former

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 c ...

trackage. The GRYR interchanges at Canton, Mississippi, with the

Canadian National 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 ...

, and at

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

with CN,

Norfolk Southern 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, ...

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pac ...

Canadian Pacific Kansas City Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited, doing business as CPKC, is a Class I railroad in North America that resulted from the merger of Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) and Kansas City Southern (KCS) on April 14, 2023. It is the first and curren ...

BNSF BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

and

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. ...

. The main commodities the

Class III railroad In the United States, railroad carriers are designated as Class I, II, or III, according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With annual adjustments for inflation, the 2019 thresholds were US$5 ...

hauls include chemicals, flour, lumber, paper, plastics, and petroleum. The Grenada Railroad is operated by Gulf & Atlantic Railways LLC.

History

The line was part of Illinois Central Railroad's Grenada District and was mostly used by its premier Chicago-New Orleans passenger trains, the ''

City of New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Panama Limited The ''Panama Limited'' was a passenger train operated from 1911 to 1971 between Chicago, Illinois, and New Orleans, Louisiana. The flagship train of the Illinois Central Railroad, it took its name from the Panama Canal, which in 1911 was three yea ...

'', running in the postwar period at speeds up to 100 miles per hour on some stretches. It is notable as it is the line on which

Casey Jones John Luther "Casey" Jones (March 14, 1863 – April 30, 1900) was an American railroader who was killed when his passenger train collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi. Jones was a locomotive engineer for the Illinois C ...

, the famed railroader, was killed. On September 10, 1995 Amtrak's ''

City of New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Surface Transportation Board. Retrieved 7 July 2013 GRYR claimed there was not enough traffic to justify keeping the line open, while the towns and counties bordering the tracks argued that abandoning the railroad would hurt them economically. The railroad eventually withdrew its application to abandon the trackage in November 2011. In 2015, the North Central Mississippi Regional Railroad Authority purchased the entire rail line for $43 million from previous owner A&K Railroad Materials. The state of Mississippi contributed a $30 million bond, while

Iowa Pacific Holdings Iowa Pacific Holdings was a holding company that owned railroad properties across North America and the United Kingdom, as well as providing services such as railcar repairs, leasing, management and consulting services to other operators. The comp ...

paid the remaining $13 million. Iowa Pacific then leased the line from the Authority, the lease payments being applied to pay back the state bond. It was reported that Iowa Pacific would continue to operate the Grenada Railway, as well as work to rebuild the trackage between Grenada and Canton. Currently, tracks had been in use for car storage as far south as

Winona, Mississippi } Winona is a city in Montgomery County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 5,043 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Montgomery County. Winona is known in the local area as "The Crossroads of North Mississippi"; the interse ...

. In 2016 Iowa Pacific sent their passenger train (decorated in the colors of the Illinois Central) to Batesville, MS to run a polar express train. The train was such a success that Iowa Pacific bought a warehouse and planned to run regular dinner trains.

Grenada Railroad, 2018-2023

In August 2018 it was announced that International Rail Partners (IRP) had concluded a lease-purchase agreement with the NCMRRA, and would operate the line under the new name Grenada ''Railroad'' LLC. In October 2018 it was announced that IRP had partnered with Equity Group Investments in a $200 million deal to form a subsidiary, RailUSA LLC; the Grenada Railroad was described in the announcement as "RailUSA's first acquisition." In June 2019, RailUSA acquired a second shortline, 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 ...

, running across the length of the Florida Panhandle. Currently, They are upgrading the track to class 3 (40 MPH) In November 2022 Grenada Railroad Receives 286K GWR Certification.

Grenada Railroad, 2023-

On April 27th, 2023, Grenada Railroad LLC bought Grenada Railway LLC.

References

{{Mississippi railroads Mississippi railroads Rail infrastructure in Mississippi