Winamac Southern Railway
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The Winamac Southern Railway is a
short-line 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 ...
in northern
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 ...
,
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 ...
, operated under
lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...
by the
Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway The Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway is a short line railroad that operates of track from Mapleton, Illinois, through Peoria across Illinois to Logansport, Indiana. TP&W has trackage rights between Galesburg, Illinois, and Peoria, between Log ...
. It owns two lines radiating from Logansport to Kokomo and
Bringhurst Bringhurst is a small village and civil parish in the Harborough district of south-east Leicestershire, England, bordering Northamptonshire and Rutland. Nearby places are Cottingham in Northants, Great Easton and Drayton in Leicestershire ...
, and formerly a third to
Winamac Winamac was the name of a number of Potawatomi leaders and warriors beginning in the late 17th century. The name derives from a man named Wilamet, a Native American from an eastern tribe who in 1681 was appointed to serve as a liaison between New ...
, all former
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 ...
lines acquired from
Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...
in 1993. It hauls mainly outbound
grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...
and inbound agricultural supplies, connecting with the
Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway The Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway is a short line railroad that operates of track from Mapleton, Illinois, through Peoria across Illinois to Logansport, Indiana. TP&W has trackage rights between Galesburg, Illinois, and Peoria, between Log ...
at Logansport and with the Central Railroad of Indianapolis at Kokomo. Until 2009, the
Central Railroad of Indianapolis Central Railroad of Indianapolis is a Class III short-line railroad that operates approximately miles of rail line in north central Indiana. One leg of the railroad begins near Marion at the unincorporated town of Michaelsville, passes west ...
(a
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 ...
subsidiary) operated the company as
agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
.


History

As 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 ...
assembled its system in northern Indiana, Logansport became a major hub, with seven lines radiating in all directions (the only other service to the city was a line of the
Wabash Railroad The Wabash Railroad was a Class I railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. It served a large area, including track in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri and the province of Ontario. Its primary con ...
, now
Norfolk Southern Railway 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 ...
).
Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...
took over four of these in 1976, and abandoned the line to
Marion Marion may refer to: People *Marion (given name) *Marion (surname) *Marion Silva Fernandes, Brazilian footballer known simply as "Marion" *Marion (singer), Filipino singer-songwriter and pianist Marion Aunor (born 1992) Places Antarctica * Mari ...
in the 1980s. The remaining lines to Winamac, Kokomo, and Bringhurst, known as the "Logansport Cluster", were spun off to the Winamac Southern, which began operations in March 1993. The new railroad was controlled by Daniel R. Frick of Frick Services, a
storage Storage may refer to: Goods Containers * Dry cask storage, for storing high-level radioactive waste * Food storage * Intermodal container, cargo shipping * Storage tank Facilities * Garage (residential), a storage space normally used to store car ...
and
handling Handling may refer to: * Automobile handling, the turning characteristics of land vehicles * Handling of stolen goods, a statutory offence in England and Wales and Northern Ireland People * Adam Handling (born 1988), British chef and restaura ...
company, who also owned J.K. Line, Inc. to the north.Edward A. Lewis, American Shortline Railway Guide, 5th Edition,
Kalmbach Publishing Kalmbach Media (formerly Kalmbach Publishing Co.) is an American publisher of books and magazines, many of them railroad-related, located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. History The company's first publication was ''The Model Railroader'', which be ...
, 1996, , p. 337
Richard S. Simons and Francis H. Parker, Railroads of Indiana,
Indiana University Press Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. IU Press publishes 140 ...
, 1997, , pp. 183-186
In September 1995, Winamac Southern sold the line from Winamac to the
yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0.914 ...
at 18th Street in Logansport to A&R Line, Inc., another new shortline owned by Frick, which was operated by J.K. Line employees using a
locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...
leased from that company. Winamac Southern retained
trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may con ...
through Logansport, in order to connect its Bringhurst and Kokomo lines. Subsequently, the
Central Railroad of Indianapolis Central Railroad of Indianapolis is a Class III short-line railroad that operates approximately miles of rail line in north central Indiana. One leg of the railroad begins near Marion at the unincorporated town of Michaelsville, passes west ...
(CERA), which serves Kokomo, began operating the remaining Winamac Southern lines as agent. The arrangement between Winamac Southern and CERA was to end at the end of 2008, and the U S Rail Corporation filed with the
Surface Transportation Board The Surface Transportation Board (STB) of the United States is a federal, bipartisan, independent adjudicatory board. The STB was established on January 1, 1996, to assume some of the regulatory functions that had been administered by the Intersta ...
to lease and operate the Winamac Southern, as well as a CERA-operated segment near Kokomo owned by the Kokomo Grain Company. However, the parties discovered that the trackage rights over A&R, which had since been merged into the
Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway The Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway is a short line railroad that operates of track from Mapleton, Illinois, through Peoria across Illinois to Logansport, Indiana. TP&W has trackage rights between Galesburg, Illinois, and Peoria, between Log ...
, had never been authorized, and concurrently filed for approval of the 1995 agreement. The STB rejected the latter notice of exemption, citing the opposition of the TP&W to continuance of trackage rights, thus requiring a more extensive proceeding. U S Rail began operating the Winamac Southern as its Kokomo Division in early 2009. As of 2019, WSRY is operated by
Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway The Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway is a short line railroad that operates of track from Mapleton, Illinois, through Peoria across Illinois to Logansport, Indiana. TP&W has trackage rights between Galesburg, Illinois, and Peoria, between Log ...
(TPW)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winamac Southern Railway Non-operating common carrier freight railroads in the United States Indiana railroads Railway companies established in 1993 Switching and terminal railroads Spin-offs of Conrail RailAmerica