The Aliquippa and Ohio River Railroad is a six-mile short line railroad in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, United States, controlled by Genesee & Wyoming Inc. through its ownership of the Ohio Central Railroad System. It lies between

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. ...

's ex- Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad line and the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

, extending south from CSX's yard in northern Aliquippa to near the Ambridge-Aliquippa Bridge. Formerly known as the Aliquippa and Southern Railroad , its owner and primary customer was

LTV Steel Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) was a large American conglomerate which existed from 1961 to 2000. At its peak, it was involved in aerospace, airlines, electronics, steel manufacturing, sporting goods, meat packing, car rentals, and pharmaceuticals, am ...

, which mostly closed its Aliquippa plant in 1985 and sold the line to the Ohio Central in 2002. The AOR now connects the Aliquippa Industrial Park, which occupies the LTV site, with CSX.

History

The Jones and Laughlin Steel Company (J&L) incorporated the Aliquippa and Southern Railroad in November 1906 to serve its new plant at Aliquippa, downriver from its Pittsburgh location. The majority of the line was opened by the end of 1910, and in 1921 the

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

declared it to be a common carrier. Although the vast majority of its service was to J&L, several other local businesses shipped over the line. LTV Steel acquired J&L in 1968, and in 1985 it shut down most of the Aliquippa plant. The bankrupt LTV sold the railroad to the Ohio Central Railroad System in late 2002, and the newly created Aliquippa and Ohio River Railroad began operations on November 15. The rail access has since attracted businesses such as Wolfpac Technologies to the Aliquippa Industrial Park, developed by the Beaver County Corporation for Economic Development on the old steel mill property. Major commodities shipped over the line include bricks, aggregates, and plastics. The company was acquired by Genesee & Wyoming in 2008 as part of its purchase of the Ohio Central Railroad System.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aliquippa Ohio River Railroad Pennsylvania railroads Railway companies established in 2002 Genesee & Wyoming 2002 establishments in Pennsylvania Aliquippa, Pennsylvania