Tennessee Central?

The Western Railway Museum was mentioned briefly; we bought the rails and other track materiels from the Union Pacific in about 1992. The railroad donated the land the rails sit on; about 22 acres.

The museum volunteers have been working to up grade the rails ever since the purchase. They repaired or rebuilt the five small timber bridges; work is currently going on at the last and longest bridge near the Molina station. When finished the overhead wire will be installed adding about another half mile to the operating track. Quite a number of culverts have been replaced in the 1913 track.The rails are 70 pounds per yard. Several road crossings have been rebuilt.

The whole 22 miles is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Sacramento Northern Railway Historic District.

One thing that never seems to be mentioned is that rights of way make money for the museums. We got rental income from fiber-optic and other sorts of lines under or crossing the tracks.

Ted Miles, Western Railway Museum

Surprised the Nevada Northern hasn't been brought up yet. The railroad and Ely city own all the track south of Shafter to Ely and onto Ruth. Admittedly most of it is out of service from near McGill up to a bit south of Shafter; but the Shafter interchange is still intact and the track segment still usable there can generate revenue for the railroad by leasing storage space for freight cars. That has to be at least 100 miles if not a bit more of intact right of way the Nevada Northern could someday renovate and return to complete service.

Not the longest, but the oldest standard gauge steam excursion operation is the Black Hills Central, aka The 1880 Train, between Hill City and Keystone, SD. It began steam operation in 1957 on leased CB&Q track. Privately owned, the company ultimately purchased the 10 miles it operates.
Alex Huff

“The Western Railway Museum was mentioned briefly; we bought the rails and other track materiels from the Union Pacific in about 1992. The railroad donated the land the rails sit on; about 22 acres. “

The Sacramento Northern Railway acquired by the Western Railway Museum is 22 miles long and 100 feet wide. That is around 270 acres. As Robert indicated farther up in this thread, there are many different kinds of title for the land. However, as long as the track remains, the right way will remain under control of the Museum.

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum owns its three mile long museum line. I don’t know the current status of the East Chattanooga Belt Line. When I was there, the belt line was owned by NS but the museum had formal trackage rights from East Chattanooga to 23rd Street, Main Street and East End Avenue. Main Street (connection now removed) provided main access to Terminal Station (Chattanooga Choo Choo) and 23rd Street provided alternate access to Terminal Station and main connection to the Central of Georgia main line. The Belt Line only has one or two freight customers now, so its main use is now passenger traffic.

TVRM operates excursions over the old Central of Georgia main line between Chattanooga and Summerville, Georgia under an agreement with the Chattooga and Chickamauga Railway and the State of Georgia, which owns the trackage. These operations have been going on for over twenty years and simply aren’t going away. Genessee and Wyoming bought the C & C and is the contract operator for the State. That means they do what the State says they have to do in the contract. That railroad would not likely have survived without the income from the passenger trains during the 2008 recession or the fact that TVRM lobbied state legislators to save it from being abandoned. TVRM has strong political relations with each town the line serves and strong relationships with the legislators whose districts are served by the line. It would be political suicide for the contract operator to try to shut the passenger trains down.

The Whitewater Valley Railroad in Connersville, IN owns 19 miles of track. That is from MP50 (two miles South of Metamora) to MP69(few hundred feet North of the CSX bridge in Connersville). We own some of the land, and have right of way over the land that is not owned. Most of which is from the feeder dam in Laurel to MP50. Eighteen miles (MP50-MP68) were purchased from Penn Central back in the 1970s, and the additional mile was purchased from Indiana Hi-Rail, around 1990, if I recall correctly.

When the WVRR was originally formed, track was leased from Penn Central from MP 44 (Brookville) to MP 68. Many in the organization (myself included) still lament the loss of the 6 miles from Brookville to Metamora. That happened during the lease from PC.

Ryan Scott

What is the condition of the ROW south of Metamora, could you reinstall the track (assuming you could puchase the land)? If nothing else it would give you a G&W connection, but I am not sure that is worth much. Howard Espravnik photo from Abandoned Rails.com

Interesting story here. The WVRR operated to Brookville for one year (either 1973 or 1974) when a very large washout occurred somewhere around MP 49. Penn Central owned the track, didn't want to fix it and WVRR shortened its route to Metamora (from Connersville) at MP 52. PC decided to pull up the rails from Brookville (where active freight customers still existed - outletting to the south at Valley Junction, OH) to Metamora. The story is that WVRR volunteers physically prevented PC from going any further north than MP 50 so that became the EOT. WVRR eventually purchased the trackage from PC to MP 50. A few years later, the state of Indiana repaired the large washout on the abandoned ROW (not sure why). The trail folks have made a short rail trail from Metamora to about MP 48. 2 miles are adjacent to the WVRR ROW and the next 2 miles are on the abandoned RR ROW. Beyond that, the adjacent property owners have claimed that RR ROW with some putting structures on it and don't want to give it up. Thus the trail is pretty short and the ROW beyond seems lost. No prospects for a railroad, and a tall task to extend the trail to Brookville as desired.