The following

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 ...

s operate in the U.S. state of

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

Common freight carriers

Blackwell Northern Gateway Railroad Blackwell Northern Gateway Railroad (BNGR) is a short-line railroad headquartered in Blackwell, Oklahoma. It operates on tracks owned by the Blackwell Industrial Authority (BIA) and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT). The BNGR was ...

(BNG) * Blue Rapids Railway (BRRY) * Boot Hill and Western Railway (BHWY) *

BNSF Railway 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 ...

(BNSF) *

Cimarron Valley Railroad The Cimarron Valley Railroad was built c. 1912 and purchased from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad in February 1996. It runs over former C.V. and Manter Subdivisions of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad tracks in Oklahoma, Colorado ...

(CVR) * Colorado Pacific Railroad (CPRR) * Garden City Western Railway (GCW) *

Kansas City Southern Railway The Kansas City Southern Railway Company is an American Class I railroad. Founded in 1887, it operates in 10 midwestern and southeastern U.S. states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and ...

(KCS) *

Kansas City Terminal Railway The Kansas City Terminal Railway is a Class III terminal railroad that serves as a joint operation of the trunk railroads that serve the Kansas City metropolitan area, the United States' second largest rail hub after Chicago. It is operated ...

(KCT) *

Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad The Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad is a shortline railroad operating in the Midwestern United States. It is primarily located in Kansas and extends into Colorado, but despite its name, not into Oklahoma. Overview The KO is a subsidiary of Watco, w ...

(KO) * Kaw River Railroad (KAW) *

Kyle Railroad The Kyle Railroad is a regional railroad line that runs from North Central Kansas into Eastern Colorado. It is based in Phillipsburg, Kansas and runs on track, mostly the former Rock Island Railroad Chicago to Denver main line. The Kyle was ow ...

(KYLE) *

Missouri and Northern Arkansas Railroad The Missouri and Northern Arkansas Railroad, LLC is a Class III shortline railroad headquartered in Carthage, Missouri. It is not to be confused with the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad which connected Joplin, Missouri with Helena, Arkansa ...

(MNA) *

South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad is a short line railroad which operates of rail lines in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri that used to belong to Missouri Pacific, Frisco and Santa Fe lines. SKOL is a unit of Watco. The present railroad was create ...

(SKOL) **Operates the Kansas Eastern Railroad (KE) *

Union Pacific Railroad 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 Paci ...

(UP) **Operates the Blue Rapids Railway and

Wichita Terminal Association The Wichita Terminal Association is a switching and terminal railroad in northern Wichita, Kansas, jointly owned by the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad. It handles mainly grain and some scrap steel, serving customers at the former Wichita ...

V&S Railway The V&S Railway is a shortline railroad that operates two disconnected lines in the U.S. state of Kansas. It is affiliated with A&K Railroad Materials. The company acquired its first line, a former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line betw ...

(VSR) * Wichita Union Terminal Railway (WUT)

Passenger carriers

Abilene and Smoky Valley Railroad The Abilene and Smoky Valley Railroad is a heritage railway located in Abilene, Kansas, United States. It is a non-profit organization that offers public excursion train rides May through October. The depot is located in the Historic 1887 Rock I ...

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 ...

(AMTK) *

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...

* Baldwin City & Southern Railroad (LLG)

Private

New Century AirCenter Railroad New Century AirCenter Railroad (JCAX) provides rail switching services within the New Century AirCenter business park in Johnson County, Kansas. Clients include Altiras Chemical LLC, CFS Sauer Foods Inc., IFF Nutrition and Health, deElliotte Co ...

Defunct railroads

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, less popular routes were reclaimed by the

war effort In politics and military planning, a war effort is a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force. Depending on the militarization of the culture, the relative size ...

for the metal rails, because of a shortage of materials during those years. ;Electric *

Arkansas Valley Interurban Railway The Arkansas Valley Interurban Railway (AVI) was an interurban railway that operated in Kansas USA from 1910 to 1938 for passengers and to 1942 for freight, running between Wichita, Newton, and Hutchinson. It operated a small fleet of electrical ...

Hutchinson and Northern Railway The V&S Railway is a shortline railroad that operates two disconnected lines in the U.S. state of Kansas. It is affiliated with A&K Railroad Materials. The company acquired its first line, a former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line betw ...

(HN) * Joplin–Pittsburg Railway * Kansas City, Kaw Valley Railroad *

Kansas City, Kaw Valley and Western Railway The Kansas City, Kaw Valley and Western Railway Railway Equipment and Publication Company, The Official Railway Equipment Register', June 1917, p. 843 was an interurban electric railway that ran between the American cities of Lawrence, Kansas, and K ...

(KV&W, KVW) * Kansas City, Lawrence and Topeka Railway * Kansas City-Leavenworth Railway * Kansas City, Leavenworth and Western Railway * Kansas City and Olathe Electric Railway *

Kansas City Public Service Company The Kansas City Public Service Company was the most well known name for a series of public transit operators in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, until being sold to the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority in 1969. Streetcar operations in Kansas ...

* Kansas and Missouri Railway and Terminal Company * Missouri and Kansas Interurban Railway * Northeast Oklahoma Railroad (NEO) * Southwest Missouri Railroad Company *

Union Electric Railway Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''U ...

;Not completed * Nebraska, Kansas and Southern Railway

Notes

References

*
Kansas DOT railroad map
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

)
Kansas Board of Railroad Commissioners Annual Reports 1883-
KGI Online Library, State Library of Kansas {{Kansas

Railroads 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 Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...