BIU-Cancasttr Fanning, Saturday, Fabruary 7,1987
Short-Line Railroads Boom In Recent Veers
UNION BRIDGE, Md. - Jim
Stuckey has enough day-to-day
headaches running his little
railroad without suffering the kind
of near-disaster that struck a few
Sundays ago.
Somebody who knew what he
was doing sneaked up during the
night, removed the chocks from
two loaded freight cars and let the
air out of the brakes. The two cars
took off on a freewheeling journey
that ended 8.5 miles down the
track.
Impaled on the coupler of the
front car was an automobile,
caught broadside at a crossing.
Inside the car was the driver, a
terrified but uninjured woman.
“This is the type of thing over
which we have virtually no con
trol,” says Stuckey, president of
the Maryland Midland Railway.
“This kind of thing can mean in
solvency.” But this time he was
lucky. A scare didn’t become a
tragedy.
Shorter Than
100 Miles
Such are the problems that can
bedevil the owners of America’s
rapidly expanding short-line
railroads. By loose definition, a
short line has fewer than 100 miles
of track and average annual
operating revenues of no more
than $17.6 million, and operates in
interstate commerce. Most carry
freight only; a few also offer
passenger excursions.
At latest count, there are 350 to
375 short lines in this country, says
Thomas C. Dorsey, vice president,
general counsel, and secretary of
the American Short Line Railroad
Association in Washington, D.C.
In 1972 there were only about 200.
About 150 have been formed since
1980 alone. By 1990, Dorsey
estimates, the total may be close to
500.
The short-line boom was bom in
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1970 with the bankruptcy of the
Penn Central, which led to the
formation of Conrail in 1976
through the consolidation of seven
bankrupt or unprofitable eastern
lines. In 1980 Congress passed a
law that speeded and simplified
procedures for large railroads to
abandon their short, unprofitable
segments.
This “brought a new interest in
railroads by entrepreneurs,”
Dorsey says, and created “a
natural mix that has blossomed
since 1980.”
Among the ingredients of that
mix is the absence of costly and
restrictive work rules that govern
large roads. A typical short line
has a lean, versatile, non-union
staff. Like many short-line
presidents, Jim Stuckey often
drives a locomotive himself.
As the big railroads prune their
systems through abandonment,
the entrepreneurs move in and
turn the short lines into profitable
enterprises, usually as freight
haulers. In recent years, Dorsey
says, “you can count on your hands
the number of failures in the short
line railroad business.”
Fears Restrictions
He is concerned, though, about
the business’s future. One priority
of organized labor in the new
Democratic Congress is to
strength protection for short-line
employees. Strong restrictions on
management “would kill the short
line boom that we’ve seen in recent
years,” Dorsey says. “Prospects
for future growth would be
stifled.”
He and others acknowledge
railroading’s romantic aura, the
durable mystique that attracts
many of the entrepreneurs in the
first place.
But, Dorsey says, “I don’t know
of anyone that’s invested as a tax
write-off or solely because he has a
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lot of spending money gained in
some other area. As far as I know,
they’re all good, solid businessmen
looking for the buck in the old
fashioned way.”
Stuckey doesn’t fit that mold. He
is a soft-spoken Alabamian, a
retired Army veterinarian, and a
lifelong lover of trains. He and a
small group of investors bought the
Maryland Midland in 1978, began
operations on 18 miles of track in
1980, and acquired 37 more miles in
1983.
It hasn’t been easy. On the very
first run of the new line, the
locomotive’s brakes weren’t
working. The big diesel slammed
into a loaded freight car and,
according to a history of the road,
“while many well wishers shared
our embarrassment, No. 102
limped off on one diesel engine to
Walkersville for inspection and
repairs.”
“In many respects it’s an ex
tremely tough business, there’s no
two ways about it,” Stuckey says.
“You essentially walk a tightrope
at any moment.” Maryland
Midland almost fell off the
tightrope into bankruptcy during
the 1982-03 recession, he says, but
the initiation of passenger tours
into the nearby Catoctin Mountains
saved it. The tours remain an
important part of the business.
Maryland Midland’s troubles
pale compared with those of the
South Branch Valley Railroad in
Moorefield, W. Va. Most of that
road’s 52.4 miles were knocked out
of commission by a devastating
flood in November 1985.
South Branch, perhaps the only
state-operated short line, was
“really looking like a railroad” a
few months before the flood, says
Donald J. Baker Jr., executive
director of the West Virginia
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gt.. jgir.v ox the Strasburg
Railroad Co., steams through Amish farm country on its nine
mile round trip between Strasburg and Paradise, Pa. The
excursion line, one of the nation's more than 350 short-line
railroads, dates back to 1832 and carries 300,000
passengers a year.
Railroad Maintenance Authority.
The estimated damage was $9.2
million and included the loss of
four major bridges. Repairs have
started and a nine-mile segment is
operating, but Baker thinks it’s
unlikely that the line will return to
full operation before spring 1988.
In contrast, the Strasburg Rail
Road, with its immaculately
maintained vintage steam
locomotives and passenger cars,
thrives as an excursion line. Each
tourist season it hauls more than
300,000 riders on a nine-mile round
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trip from its East Strasburg, Pa ,
terminal through Amish farm
country to Paradise, Pa. Freight
revenues are minimal.
“Really, what we’re doing here
is putting on a show,” says Ellis R.
Bachman, the Strasburg un
dertaker who is vice president of
tht short line, which dates back to
and calls itself the oldest
continually operating railroad in
North America. “We’re trying to
keep the atmosphere of old-time
railroading.”