The Aliquippa and Ohio River Railroad is a six-mile

short line railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania Aliquippa is the largest city in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States, located on the Ohio River about northwest of Pittsburgh. The population was 9,238 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Formerly the loc ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, controlled by Genesee & Wyoming Inc. through its ownership of the Ohio Central Railroad System. It lies between CSX Transportation's ex-

Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE) , also known as the "Little Giant", was formed on May 11, 1875. Company headquarters were located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The line connected Pittsburgh in the east with Youngstown, Ohio in the ...

line and the Ohio River, extending south from CSX's

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly ...

in northern Aliquippa to near the Ambridge-Aliquippa Bridge. Formerly known as the Aliquippa and Southern Railroad , its owner and primary customer was LTV Steel, which mostly closed its Aliquippa plant in 1985 and sold the line to the Ohio Central in 2002. The AOR now connects the Aliquippa Industrial Park, which occupies the LTV site, with CSX.

History

The

Jones and Laughlin Steel Company The Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation began as the American Iron Company, founded in 1852 by Bernard Lauth and Benjamin Franklin Jones, a few miles (c 4 km) south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. Lauth's interest was bought in ...

(J&L) incorporated the Aliquippa and Southern Railroad in November 1906 to serve its new plant at Aliquippa, downriver from its

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

location. The majority of the line was opened by the end of 1910, and in 1921 the Interstate Commerce Commission declared it to be a common carrier. Although the vast majority of its service was to J&L, several other local businesses shipped over the line. LTV Steel acquired J&L in 1968, and in 1985 it shut down most of the Aliquippa plant. The bankrupt LTV sold the railroad to the Ohio Central Railroad System in late 2002, and the newly created Aliquippa and Ohio River Railroad began operations on November 15. The rail access has since attracted businesses such as Wolfpac Technologies to the Aliquippa Industrial Park, developed by the Beaver County Corporation for Economic Development on the old steel mill property. Major commodities shipped over the line include bricks, aggregates, and plastics. The company was acquired by Genesee & Wyoming in 2008 as part of its purchase of the Ohio Central Railroad System.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aliquippa Ohio River Railroad Pennsylvania railroads Railway companies established in 2002 Genesee & Wyoming 2002 establishments in Pennsylvania Aliquippa, Pennsylvania