FROM SHORT LINE TO SHORT ENGINEER ALEX MOSS has Louisville & In- diana mixed freight train C12A rolling through southern Indiana at a steady 49 mph, bound for the railroad’s Jeff Yard in November 2016. “This is exciting. It’s a really nice ride now,” he says. Less than three months prior, CUT the same trip would have been an amble through the countryside with the speed Louisville & Indiana takes never reaching above 25 mph. The faster run is possible because on a new role with CSX of the South Wind project, a com- plete revitalization of the Louisville & Indiana Railroad short by Charles Buccola line, from dispatching to PHOTOS BY STEVE SMEDLEY roadbed to rail. The project is a key element in an agreement be- tween the short line and Class I railroad CSX Transportation to turn the line be- tween Louisville, Ky., and Indianapolis into a major artery for through traffic. The South Wind name recalls the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Chicago-to-Flori- da fast streamliner launched in December 1940 that traveled this same route. But the South Wind project is very much about handling today’s freight traffic between the Midwest and Southeast and planning for the future. It’s about a shortline rail- road connecting its customers with the national rail network and at the same time hosting huge CSX automotive, intermod- al, and merchandise trains. But don’t ex- pect the daily presence of big Class I rail- road trains to change the focus. “We are a short line,” says Louisville & Indiana Pres- ident John Goldman. “We don’t want to be anything other than a short line. But we’re very professional. We are very sensitive to our customers and to the communities we operate through.” From his second-floor office in L&I’s headquarters in Jeffersonville, Ind., Gold- man has a good view of Jeff Yard with the skyline of Louisville in the background. The majority of L&I locomotives switching cars Left, a local approaches Clagg Tower on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River bridge. Above, engineer Alex Moss. www.TrainsMag.com 41 A northbound Louisville & Indiana train below or lined up at the engine house sport Midwest and South. In the late steam era, between Jeffersonville, Ind., and Columbus, a tasteful paint scheme of Tuscan Red with this busy line hosted multiple named pas- Ind., crosses Second Street in Seymour, Ind., gold stripe, adopted in 2013. A keystone senger trains and heavy freights, the latter at 12:20 a.m., on April 12, 2017. herald marks the locomotives, the head- often powered by Pennsy’s J-1 2-10-4s. As quarters building, and other structures with much of the PRR system, the property owns. Things got off to an inauspicious start along the railroad. All are a conscious hom- ultimately turned Conrail blue in 1976. when former Conrail employees declined to age to the line’s PRR heritage. Conrail sold the line in 1991 because the instruct the new guys how to lower the lift The route’s ancestry starts with the Jef- tracks needed heavy, expensive repairs and span of the Ohio River bridge. So L&I’s mo- fersonville Railroad, opened in 1850. Con- the line wasn’t viewed as a route that would tive power sat on the Kentucky side of the solidations with other pioneering lines see traffic growth. Anacostia Rail Holdings, river until the next day, when the new crews during the mid-19th century resulted in a however, saw potential because this was the cracked the code. The company got down to railroad reaching from the only direct route between the business of moving overhead freight be- shore of the Ohio River to Indianapolis and Louisville, tween CSX in Louisville and Conrail in In- Indianapolis; the rail- “WE DON’T it was close to multiple dianapolis, as well as servicing online busi- road later became part markets, and it had sites nesses and other interchange partners. of the Pennsy’s Panhan- WANT TO BE for industrial develop- The model was set until the Conrail dle Route. ment. In March 1994 Ana- breakup in 1999. At that point, CSX routed With the opening of the ANYTHING OTHER costia purchased the 106.5- traffic between Indianapolis and Louisville Louisville Bridge over the mile main line and several via Cincinnati over its own lines. Louisville Ohio River in 1870, the line THAN A short branches. The Louis- & Indiana hung on without important anchored itself as an impor- ville & Indiana Railroad is one overhead traffic, focusing on existing cus- tant connection between the SHORT LINE. of six railroads Anacostia tomers, adding new ones, and working 42 Trains AUGUST 2017 NS To Ft. Wayne, Ind. To Cleveland and Pittsburgh Muncie CSX CSX to Chicago, NS to Lafayette, Ind. INDIANA CSX/NS CSX/NS Interchanges at Indianapolis, To East St. Seymour, and Louisville Louis, Ill. Indianapolis CSX Southport CSX ISRR Greenwood Connersville To Cleveland Whiteland LIRC Louisville & Indiana and Toledo, Ohio Franklin Other lines as indicated LIRC CSX CSX Transportation INRD Indiana Rail Road INRD To Evansville, ISRR Indiana Southern Hamilton Ind. Edinburgh MGR MG Rail NS Norfolk Southern PAL Paducah & Louisville OHIO To Newton, Ill., Columbus SIND Southern Indiana CSX and Chicago Not all lines shown Bloomington Cincinnati CSX Jonesville North Vernon Seymour LIRC CSX Crothersville Austin Ohio River INDIANA Mitchell Scottsburg CSX Indianapolis Underwood o/s Map area Henryville LIRC Speed SIND CSX Watson NS Jeffersonville MGR To St. Louis and Port of Indiana N Kansas City, Mo. Louisville —Jeffersonville NS CSX PAL KENTUCKY 0 Scale 50 miles © 2017 Kalmbach Publishing Co., TRAINS: Rick Johnson To Atlanta To Paducah, Ky. To Nashville, Tenn., and Atlanta steadily on improvements. But the lack of bridge traffic seemed like an odd and miss- ing essential ingredient. KEY COMMODITIES AND CUSTOMERS In addition to connecting with CSX, L&I also interchanges with Norfolk Southern, Paducah & Louisville, and Indiana Rail Road. In the classic shortline mind-set of ex- cellent service to customers small and large, Goldman says, “All of our customers are sig- nificant to our business. We take great pride in getting that one-car customer and hope- fully growing with them.” Of the diverse mix of traffic the company handles, the big commodities are steel, plas- tics, and grain. With these commodities, two locations figure prominently in the more than 20,000 carloads that Louisville & Indi- ana moved in 2016. One of them is Kokomo An R.J. Corman Rail Services crew installing new ties works to clear the main line of the Grain at Edinburgh, which generated a re- Louisville & Indiana at Edinburgh, Ind., on April 10, 2017. The short line has seen extensive cord 47 85-car unit grain trains in 2015 and work to make it an important through route between Indianapolis and Louisville. www.TrainsMag.com 43 Louisville & Indiana engineer Alex Moss switches cars with conductor Joe McKinley as they work Jeff Yard’s switcher J-11A, at Jeffersonville, Ind., on April 11, 2017. a robust 43 in 2016. The other is an industri- al park, rather than a single customer — the Port of Indiana-Jeffersonville on the Ohio River. The port offers water, highway, and rail service to a dozen steel processors and 14 other companies that supply the automo- tive industry, Port Director Scott Stewart says. The Louisville & Indiana offers a com- petitive advantage to rail service, given all of its connections. Steel and plastics are two commodities that go to the industrial park, automotive suppliers in the Louisville area, where pro- duction has been booming. This and the Louisville & Indiana Railroad President John D. Goldman checks on the status of one of grain traffic helped L&I to avoid a traffic his trains from his second-floor office of the railroad’s headquarters building in decline of the magnitude experienced by Jeffersonville, Ind. In the foreground, a model of one of the railroad’s GP38-2s. the Class I railroads in recent years. Lubrizol, requested Louisville & Indiana to ships with Class I railroads. To an employee, A RESPONSIVE YOUNG TEAM store plastic resin cars. The short line invest- you can sense the excitement among the Goldman describes his company as “a ed several million dollars to restore the yard, Louisville & Indiana workforce about being small organization, a good corporate citizen, reopened in March 2016, to meet that need. part of something big: the South Wind proj- very customer focused.” Of course good cus- It can hold up to 80 cars from which the ect and its long-term effects. tomer service is the hallmark of successful customer can transload product from rail to short lines. But just how far is the company truck. The yard could be further expanded JOINT-USE AGREEMENT willing to go? A good example is Dutch to serve other customers. “We are a young Under the agreement with CSX, the Lou- Lane Yard in Jeffersonville, at one time a team, but we’re also an experienced team,” isville & Indiana is becoming a new railroad busy New York Central yard adjacent to a Goldman says, noting that most of the man- from the ground up. New 136-pound weld- U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps depot. agement staff has experience on Class I rail- ed rail is replacing jointed rail dating back to When Anacostia purchased the property, it roads. With that background, he says he and the 1930s, and it’s placed atop new ties set in was essentially abandoned. A customer, his employees can foster working relation- new ballast. Bridges, culverts, and other sub- 44 Trains AUGUST 2017 structure are rebuilt where necessary.