Lake State Railway of Michigan has been named the 2021 regional railroad of the year by Railway Age magazine.
An Ohio short line, the Belpre Industrial Parkersburg Railroad, was awarded honorable mention in the short line of the year competition, which was won by the Memphis Line of R.J. Corman.
Lake State is a 373-mile Class II carrier serving primarily the northern half of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.
It became a regional carrier in 2019 by acquiring the CSX Saginaw Subdivision between its namesake city and Plymouth.
This year Lake State is expected to handle 65,000 carloads, up from the 30,000 carloads of 2018.
It has won an American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association award for marketing initiatives in three of the past four years.
The 48-mile Class III BIPR is located in far southern Ohio and interchanges with CSX in Parkersburg, West Viginia.
It serves industries in metals, plastics and petrochemicals in the Ohio River Valley.
A relatively new operation, BIPR has upgraded 21 miles of track from excepted to Federal Railroad Administration Class 2 standards.
In its 12 months of operation the railroad has had zero reportable injuries and increased total revenue movements 84 percent compared with the three-year average of the line in previous years.
Other projects undertaken by BIPR have included converting several barge and truck movements to rail for existing customers (coal, residual fuel, asphalt); initiating new product movements for existing customers (ferroalloys, carbon, plastics); adding three new storage-in-transit customers supporting regional industry; and investing more than $2 million into equipment, rail refurbishment and upgrades, and new sidings.
Tags: Belpre Industrial Parkerburg Railroad, Lake State Railway, Michigan short line railroads, R.J. Corman
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