The Rockdale, Sandow and Southern Railroad was a
Class III railroad
Railroad classes are the system by which freight railroads are designated in the United States. Railroads are assigned to Class I, II or III according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With a ...
operating in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
state of
Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
. It consisted of
of
track between
Rockdale and
Marjorie
Marjorie is a female given name derived from Margaret (name), Margaret, which means pearl. It can also be spelled as Margery (name), Margery, Marjory or Margaery. Marjorie is a medieval variant of Margery, influenced by the name of the herb marjor ...
, Texas.
In 2005, the
holding company
A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...
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 ...
purchased the railroad.
It ultimately became part of Genesee & Wyoming's holdings.
The railroad's traffic came mainly from aluminum products, as well as other metals. RSS hauled around 6,100 carloads in 2008.
In December 2018,
Alcoa
Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for "Aluminum Company of America") is an American industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary alu ...
Energy Services, which owned a closed
smelter
Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead and zin ...
on the line, announced that it planned to acquire the railroad, which by that time was inactive, and a year later filed to abandon the line on the grounds that it had no realistic chance of obtaining customers.
References
Texas railroads
RailAmerica
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