Talk:List of common carrier freight railroads in the United States

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Why are some RR's bolded and others are not? --Jiang

Just to confuse people. ;-)

Actually, it's for railroads that are currently operating, but I had forgotten to put that in until you mentioned it. --rj

Would it be clearer to say that UP is the oldest railroad continuously operating under its current name? Predecessors of CSX (the B&O) and CP (D&H) are clearly older, so these railroads could claim to be older companies. -- MHS

UP is not the oldest railroad continuously operating under its current name. That honor falls to the Long Island Rail Road, founded a good 20 years earlier.

The UP is the oldest Class 1 railroad, however, and the oldest to still be independent (LIRR is owned by the New York MTA). --Morven 18:21, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think the LIRR does make enough revenue to fall into Class I status, but Class I only applies to freight companies. The LIRR was Class I back in 1978, but its freight operations are now the New York and Atlantic Railway. As for the oldest railroad, see oldest railroad in North America. --SPUI (talk) 21:26, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

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Moved this page to the new title List of North American Railroads to follow Wikipedia convention to call lists 'List of ...' and because it's not United States railroads since we list Canadian too. --—Morven 23:00, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Moved to List of United States railroads as this is the intent of the page. All railroads listed operate in the United States. All linked pages refer to the United States. Any purely Canadian roads should be removed but I didn't see any. Rmhermen 23:22, Jan 5, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, the wording about the Canadian/Mexican railroads listed made it rather unclear. Fixed for clarity. —Morven 00:57, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Division into existing/historical

I am of the opinion that railroad names in active use should be considered "Existing" even if owned by another entity. I'm thinking in particular about the Long Island Rail Road, which although owned by the New York MTA still operates under its own unique name. I've placed it back in the existing category.

By this I do not include names that only exist in that locomotives/cars still carry the reporting marks. I'm talking about actually operating under the subsidiary name. E.g. the use by NS of the "PRR" reporting mark, or the CSX use of "NYC", don't count as those railroads still actually operating. —Morven 22:26, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

Maintenance issues

Would it be easier to have former railroads be a link to a category? It would have the same results but be easier to maintain. -User:SPUI

That would depend on what we think this page should be. As it is, this page can be used as a list of articles that still need to be written. slambo 23:53, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Eh, there are so many that it doesn't seem like they'll all be listed anyway unless an approach of going from the other end (like I'm doing for Florida by looking in the state laws) is taken. --SPUI 00:03, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Isolated railroads

Is this supposed to be a list of common carriers, or should railroads like the ones in Walt Disney World be added? Something should also be added about subway systems etc not being included; not sure what exactly. --SPUI 00:03, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Adding short lines

I've added all the lines from [1]. Canadian and Mexican ones are now moved to their own pages. --SPUI 00:17, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

By the way, are the EJ&E and FEC really Class 1? They're both in the ASLRRA - I can see the FEC, but the EJ&E? I guess it's a high traffic area, so it's possible.--SPUI 02:21, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[2] calls the FEC Class 1. --SPUI 05:47, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As I stated elsewhere (User talk:Slambo and Template talk:US class 1), EJ&E was listed as a Class 1 railroad in the April 1984 edition of the Official Railway Equipment Register, and it is on that authority that EJ&E is listed here as a Class 1 railroad. This refrence also listed FEC as a Class 1 railroad. The Class 1 designation is about the railroad's revenues, not the length of it's track. slambo 11:30, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

By the way, for anyone reading this, I think we've come to a consensus that the EJ&E and FEC are now class 2. --SPUI 00:17, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Up to E in [3]

Compact TOC

Unfortunately, with the two alphabetized sections, the compact TOC template already fails it, since the first links should be #a2, #b2, etc. Once the current list is populated, a compacttoc should be able to go there, and for the fallen flags, a handmade one. Alternately, it may be time for an article split into current and former. --SPUI 12:07, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I was thinking along those lines too as I put the TOC back in. I'd be more in favor of an article split so we don't have to hand-maintain a TOC. May I suggest that the active railroad companies be kept under the current article and the fallen flags move to List of defunct United States railroads? slambo 13:59, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Short Line Railway pages

Actually, I've been wanting to contribute to this page for about a week now, but I've been wondering about protocol regarding linking to homepages for railways that are under the control of larger firms. Should I just numbered-link to the page in question as per Omnitrax possessions, or is there another protocol I need to follow? I look forward to seeing a link by each of those names up there. Orethrius 03:15, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I've been linking to the page on the holding company's website. --SPUI (talk) 13:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Defunct Railroads

Maybe it's just me, but I find the use of the heading "defunct railroads" in the state-by-state listings to be misleading, since many of those railroads are still operating (as a component of a larger, merged railroad). It seems appropriate to me to change the term "defunct railroads" to "fallen flag railroads" (or something), and then maybe add new headings for "abandoned railroads." Does anyone have any opinions on this before I tackle the change? Pitamakan 19:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Classification

Someone please add text explaining, or link to an article explaining, the classification scheme in this list. I'd like to add a railroad to the list but don't know where to put it. --Una Smith (talk) 20:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Conrail's reporting marks?

The CR reporting mark went to Norfolk Southern, and I can't find any evidence that CSAO is an actual mark. Does it have a reporting mark, and if not, what's on its rolling stock? --NE2 07:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)