The New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad was a

Class I railroad In the 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 Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, st ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

and

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

in the

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 ...

. The railroad operated of road from its completion in 1883 until it was absorbed by the

Alabama Great Southern Railroad The Alabama Great Southern Railroad is a railroad in the U.S. states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It is an operating subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Corporation (NS), running southwest from Chattanooga (where i ...

subsidiary of the Southern Railway in 1969.

History

The New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad was incorporated in 1868 in Louisiana (under the name of Mandeville and Sulphur Springs Railroad until 1870 Interstate Commerce Commission, 37 Val. Rep. 1 (1931): Valuation Docket No. 973, New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad Company) and 1871 in Mississippi. No track was built, however, and the company's land lay unused until 1881, when control of the company was acquired by the

Alabama, New Orleans, Texas and Pacific Junction Railways Company The Queen and Crescent Route was a cooperative railroad route in the Southeastern U.S., connecting Cincinnati (the "Queen City") with New Orleans (the "Crescent City") and Shreveport. Inaugurated in the 1880s, the name was retained by Souther ...

. Construction on the line began in 1882. The line opened in 1883 and extended 196 miles from New Orleans to Meridian, Mississippi. In 1916 the Southern Railway acquired the NO&NE, which had been marketed as a portion of the

Queen and Crescent Route The Queen and Crescent Route was a cooperative railroad route in the Southeastern U.S., connecting Cincinnati (the "Queen City") with New Orleans (the "Crescent City") and Shreveport. Inaugurated in the 1880s, the name was retained by Souther ...

since the 1880s. From that point on the NO&NE owned or were assigned locomotives and other equipment wore Southern lettering but carried NO&NE sublettering until the line was merged into the Alabama Great Southern in the late-60s, at which time sublettering was changed to AGS. In 1969, as part of an effort to simplify its corporate structure, the Southern Railway's

operating subsidiary An operating subsidiary is a subsidiary of a corporation through which the parent company (which may or may not be a holding company) indirectly conducts some portion of its business. Usually, an operating subsidiary can be distinguished in that ...

merged the NO&NE, ending its existence on paper. In 1960 NO&NE reported 746 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 13 million passenger-miles; at the end of that year it operated 203 miles of road and 368 miles of track.

Today

The line remains in operation today. After a merger, the Southern Railway changed its name to the Norfolk Southern Railway in 1990.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:New Orleans Northeastern Railroad Railway companies established in 1870 Railway companies disestablished in 1969 Defunct Louisiana railroads Defunct Mississippi railroads Former Class I railroads in the United States Predecessors of the Southern Railway (U.S.)