Whether as tourist railroads, main lines, or Class IIIs.

Personally, the biggest examples to me are the PRR Panhandle from Pittsburgh to St. Louis as a freight line. Whereas the N&W Abingdon Branch would have been a solid tourist line.

Riding a train up or down Saluda would be a blast.

Also, while I'm glad part of it is coming back, I frequently say that the Northern Central from Baltimore to York is a stretch of railroad that was too pretty to live.

First and foremost, the Milwaukee Road's line through the Cascades between Spokane and Tacoma. I think BN seriously regretted not buying the right of way as it was the most gentle grade through the mountains and had a tunnel high enough for stack trains even back before they existed.

Hands down the GTW Romeo subdivision. The GTW Romeo subdivision was considered one of the most beautiful and scenic routes of the GTW which originated in Pontiac MI ran through several of Michigan's orchards and farms. the route was also iconic as GTW J3a Pacific's (5000 class locomotives) would doublehead on the line along with the Caseville subdivision on fantrips by the Michigan Railroad club. what's a shame is that the line wasn't torn up til the early 2000's when the last customer called it quits so there was plenty of time for someone to nab it. whats even more of a shame is Pontiac MI where the line originates used to be home base for the Bluewater NRHS who had been looking for a permanent home for quite a while with ample storage to keep the passenger cars safe.

Myself, I'd nominate the entire Ferrocarriles de Guatemala system. Equal to or greater than any of the better known narrow gauges in North America, FEGUA had everything they have along with volcanoes, seaports, coffee, sugar, and banana plantations, and of course, no snow (no loss). We tried a tourist operation, and coulda/woulda/shoulda provided a shortcut for container traffic between the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean..... ask anybody who's ever been there.

I'd nominate PRR's Ft. Wayne Line (PFW&C) from Pittsburgh to Chicago. It would get Amtrak off NS via Cleveland and allow upgrade to high speed (90 or 110 mph?) with regional local service too.

Phil Mulligan

The loss of the Reading Company’s Bethlehem branch in Pennsylvania, while many consider this a regional line it was important for regional economic health. The tracks from Lansdale north to Quakertown are in questionable condition compared to the days of the Reading Company. After Quakertown the rails are gone with a pleasant walking trail replacing the tracks up to Bethlehem.
Tracks were allowed to rot under SEPTA and Lehigh County ownership

I'll nominate the Smoky Mountain Railroad (formerly the KS&E) that ran from Knoxville, TN near Neyland Stadium to downtown Sevierville, TN. The line was never a money maker from freight or passenger service except a brief time when Douglas Dam was being built and the railroad was used. Before Samuel Spencer (fmr. Southern Railway President) died in a railroad accident he had promised the owner of the KS&E that Southern would buy the road outright. Mr. Spencer was killed and the deal never went through. The railroad ceased operation in 1959 and the rails were torn up around 1964 and now only small visible portions of the right of way exist. Had Southern bought it, it likely would have been there today and could have been a tourist draw bringing tourists from Knoxville to the Sevierville/Pigeon Forge area.

On the bright side, multiple locomotives still exist from the Smoky Mountain. Little River 110 (operational), Southern 154 (operational), SM 206 (Chattanooga Choo Choo), SM/SOU 107 (Entrance to Dollywood) and the GE 44 tonner is being restored at WW&S.

Surprised no one has mentioned the Lackawanna Cutoff.

I see two themes emerging from this thread
Type 1. Historic/scenic lines that would have made great heritage/tourist/museum railroads.
Type 2. Routes that would serve some very useful transportation purpose these days (in addition to being neat ties to the past that keep living).

At this time I am thinking a Type 1 line would be the Tallulah Falls Railroad, which was used in filming the Great Locomotive Chase, was very fondly thought of, and Walt Disney gave saving it some thought.

For Type 2 routes I would nominate both the Chicago Aurora and Elgin and the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee. Both had modern equipment, extremely well engineered lines in good shape, modernization projects in the works (Improvement of the Congress Expressway provided for express tracks and storage tracks for the CA&E, plans were in the works for express tracks in freeways in Waukegan and Milwaukee for the North Shore, and there were attempts by the CTA to get an operation going over both lines).

The New York, Susquehanna & Western from Sparta Junction to Hainesburg Junction. After the Lehigh & New England was abandoned there was little reason to keep this line. There was a trickle of online customers that continued to be served until the line was abandoned in August of 1962. There was an offer to buy this line by some of the people who eventually founded the Black River & Western. Their plan for the 26 miles of the NYS&W was steam tourist trains and remaining a common carrier for the existing customers.

Unfortunately, the City of Newark made a superior offer for the right of way with the plan to use it for a pipeline to bring water from the massive project to dam the Delaware River at Tocks Island. As you probably know, Tocks Island never happened and today the NYS&W west of Sparta Jct. is the Paulenskill Valley Train. The rest of the NYS&W of course is a story with a lot happier ending!

I’ve entertained this thought before…. Though not yet abandoned but out of service, the middle portion of the NS/PRR line between Niles and Alliance, Ohio. That could give steamers a good place to really stretch their legs.

Depends on if we are talking about routes that would be economically beneficial to today's Class 1 railroads or "scenic routes".

The 3ft gauge ETWNC from Johnson City, TN to Boone, NC would have been a Durango & Silverton of the east if still around.

Didn't Canadian Pacific have a rail line from Montreal to the ski resort community of Mont Tremblant? - That would have been the closest thing to a European alps style railline in North America.

Or the NWP up to Eureka, CA.

Or Imagine if the FEC's overseas RR survived to Key West.

N&W south of Abington, VA, now “the Virginia Creeper” hiking trail.

There are several excellent candidates there, particularly those which should have been no-brainer candidates for repurposing into transit lines when the local freight dried up. I have two suggestions in that regard. The first is the Roslyn Connecting Railroad (a PRR subsidiary) in the DC Metro area which served the Pentagon and its ne'er-do-well neighbor the Washington and Old Dominion. The two came within feet of each in Roslyn and Alexandria but never connected directly. Both have been replaced in part by Washington Metro Lines, but that does not stop me from nominating a long gone bureaucrat at the Virginia Department of Highways to receive a Lifetime Stupidity Award for his determination that there would never be enough traffic to or beyond Dulles Airport to justify retaining the railroad. When I did a tour in the District in the 70's the mantra was that the Metro would connect to Dulles in just a few years. It seems that is still the case.

GME