The Indiana Southern Railroad is a short line or

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 ...

operating in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

state of

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

. It began operations in 1992 as a RailTex property, and was acquired by

RailAmerica RailAmerica, Inc., based in Jacksonville, Florida, was a holding company of a number of short-line railroads and regional railroads in the United States and Canada. In 2007, RailAmerica was acquired by Fortress Investment Group. Before that, it t ...

in 2000. RailAmerica was itself acquired by Genesee & Wyoming in December 2012. Indiana Southern Railroad operates of track from

Indianapolis 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 Marion ...

Evansville Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in S ...

. From Mars Hill (a neighborhood on the southwest side of Indianapolis) southwest through Martinsville and Spencer to Bee Hunter in Greene County, the ISRR runs on tracks that once made up the majority of the former Indianapolis & Vincennes Branch of the

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 ...

. State Route 67 parallels the ISRR along much of this section. From Bee Hunter to Elnora the ISRR has trackage rights over the

Indiana Rail Road The Indiana Rail Road is a United States Class II railroad, originally operating over former Illinois Central Railroad trackage from Newton, Illinois, to Indianapolis, Indiana, a distance of . This line, now known as the Indiana Rail Road's India ...

. ISRR tracks resume from Elnora through

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

in Daviess County, Petersburg in Pike County, Oakland City in Gibson County,

Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was in a docu ...

Warrick County Warrick County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of 2020, the population was 63,898. The county seat is Boonville. It was organized in 1813 and was named for Captain Jacob Warrick, an Indiana militia company commander killed ...

and

Daylight Daylight is the combination of all direct and indirect sunlight during the daytime. This includes direct sunlight, diffuse sky radiation, and (often) both of these reflected by Earth and terrestrial objects, like landforms and buildings. Sunligh ...

Vanderburgh County Vanderburgh County is a county in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of 2010, the population was 179,703. The county seat is in Evansville. While Vanderburgh County was the seventh-largest county in 2010 population with 179,703 people, it is also the ...

before terminating in

along the former

New York Central 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 ...

's Evansville & Indianapolis Branch. Indiana Southern Railroad SD40-2s

Locomotive fleet

The Indiana Southern began operations with a fleet of 10 ex-CSX EMD GP40 locomotives which were rebuilt without dynamic brakes and identified as GP40-1s. As of 2018, the ISRR currently operates 10 ex-BNSF EMD SD40-2 locomotives acquired from First Union Railway Equipment in 2013 after the railroad became Genesee & Wyoming property. Additionally, the railroad owns two G&W rebuilt GP40-3 locomotives, 3051 and 3052. ISRR 3051 was rebuilt from ISRR 4051, one of the original GP40-1s originally fleeted and is the only remaining original member of the fleet. Finally, ISRR operates an ex-Toledo, Peoria & Western GP40 painted in the Rail America paint scheme. It is the only remaining member of the fleet not in Genesee & Wyoming paint.

Operations

The railroad's traffic comes mainly from coal and grain products, including corn and soybeans. The ISRR hauled around 70,000 carloads in 2008. The Indiana Southern interchanges in Indianapolis with

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. ...

in CSX's Crawford Yard, the

in Switz City and Beehunter,

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway (U.S.), Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the ...

in Oakland City in Evansville the railroad terminates with a connection at CSX's (ex-C&EI) Wansford yard, just west of

U.S. Route 41 U.S. Route 41, also U.S. Highway 41 (US 41), is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs from Miami, Florida, to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Until 1949, the part in southern Florida, from Naples to Miami, ...

, near the

Evansville Regional Airport Evansville Regional Airport is three miles north of Evansville, in Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. It is owned and operated by the Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority District. Federal Aviation Administration records say the ai ...

. Just south of Indianapolis, the railroad serves transloading facility Kid Glove Services. The railroad serves industries in Mooresville and a

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

unloading facility in Martinsville. A siding between Whitaker and Gosport is regularly used for car storage; as is a small yard in Worthington on the former New York Central trackage. The railroad supplies

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

to power plants in Edwardsport and Petersburg. There are around 2 trains per week supplying the Edwardsport plant with coal and carrying byproducts from the plant. The railroad also serves a

grain elevator 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 deposits ...

in Plainville and the Grain Processing Corporation in Washington.

References

External links

Indiana Southern Railway official webpage - Genesee and Wyoming website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Indiana Southern Railroad Indiana railroads RailAmerica Spin-offs of Conrail