The Camp Chase Railway is a short-line

switching and terminal railroad A switching and terminal railroad is a freight railroad company whose primary purpose is to perform local switching services or to own and operate a terminal facility. Switching is a type of operation done within the limits of a yard. It gener ...

in and near

Columbus, Ohio Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...

, United States, running past the former

Camp Chase Camp Chase was a military staging and training camp established in Columbus, Ohio, in May 1861 after the start of the American Civil War. It also included a large Union-operated prison camp for Confederate prisoners during the American Civil Wa ...

. The company was formed as the Camp Chase Industrial Railroad in 1994 as a spin-off of

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

. Through

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may c ...

, the railroad interchanges with

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

and

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...

at Buckeye Yard. The Camp Chase bike trail follows alongside the railroad for 12 miles and is one the few trails in the United States that runs within an active railroad right-of-way.

History

Predecessors

The Columbus, Springfield and Cincinnati Railroad opened the line between Columbus and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

in 1872,The Camp Chase Railroad
" Columbus Neighborhoods Season 4 Episode 7, WOSU, 11/16/17. and it became part of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway's (Big Four's) main line west from Columbus to

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

and later part of the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected New York metropolitan area, gr ...

. The

Ohio State Limited The ''Ohio State Limited'' was a United States named passenger train operated by the New York Central Railroad (NYC) between New York City and Cincinnati, Ohio, via Buffalo and Cleveland, Ohio. Service began in 1924 and continued until 1967, wi ...

ran daily along the line with stops in Lilly Chapel, Georgesville,

Galloway Galloway ( ; ; ) is a region in southwestern Scotland comprising the counties of Scotland, historic counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. It is administered as part of the council areas of Scotland, council area of Dumfries and Gallow ...

, and Columbus. The Ohio State Limited ceased service on the line in the 1960s. The

Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals, the Pennsylvania Railroad, ...

shifted traffic to the ex-

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

line between Columbus and London, and the portion of the old Big Four line west of Lilly Chapel was not included in

in 1976. The remainder was kept as a minor branch line, the Camp Chase Industrial Track.

Camp Chase Industrial Railroad

On October 11, 1994, the new Camp Chase Industrial Railroad bought the line from Conrail.''American Shortline Railway Guide, 5th Edition'' by Edward A. Lewis,

Kalmbach Publishing Company Kalmbach Media (formerly Kalmbach Publishing Co.) was an American publisher of books and magazines, many of them railroad-related, located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. History The company's first publication was ''The Model Railroader'', which be ...

, 1996, , page 57. In 1996, it was reported that the railroad had one engine and traffic of 3,000 cars a year, carrying newsprint, grain, flour and lumber. The Camp Chase Industrial Railroad has been marketed under the name Camp Chase Railroad beginning around 2009. On September 30, 2015, Carload Express, Inc. announced that its Camp Chase Railroad Company has sold its line of railroad to Camp Chase Railway Company, LLC; a wholly owned subsidiary of Indiana Boxcar Corporation. Camp Chase Railway ("CAMY") assumed operations of the rail line, which runs from Columbus to Lilly Chapel, Ohio, beginning on Thursday October 1, 2015. Most of CAMY freight revenue comes from grain being transported along the rails going either to some of the

grain elevators A grain elevator or grain terminal is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lowe ...

along the track, or to be interchanged with NS at the Buckeye Yard. The Camp Chase Railroad was featured on the WOSU show ''Columbus Neighborhoods'' on November 16, 2017. The line was owned by

Indiana Boxcar Corporation The Indiana Boxcar Corporation (IBC), based in Connersville, Indiana, United States, provides services such as locomotive leasing to the rail industry. It also owned several short-line railroads which operated lines under contract for their owners: ...

from 2015 to 2019, and in September 2020 was one of four shortlines bought by Midwest & Bluegrass Rail LLC of Kansas City. In 2023,

Gulf & Atlantic Railways Pinsly Railroad Company is an American short line railroad holding company, that owns and operates 6 railroads in the United States. Formerly known as Gulf & Atlantic Railways, the company rebranded to Pinsly Railroad Company on March 1, 2024. Pi ...

purchased the railroad along with two other shortlines. Through

, the CCRA interchanges with

and

at Buckeye Yard. The railroad also generates income by storing cars along unused portions of their tracks. The railroad serves a number of customers including a

transloading Transloading, also known as cross-docking, is the process of transferring a shipment from one mode of transportation to another. It is most commonly employed when one mode cannot be used for the entire trip, such as when goods must be shipped in ...

facility, major agri-businesses, an ethanol plant and, until it closed, the printing plant for ''

The Columbus Dispatch ''The Columbus Dispatch'' is a daily newspaper based in Columbus, Ohio. Its first issue was published on July 1, 1871, and it has been the only mainstream daily newspaper in the city since ''The Columbus Citizen-Journal'' ceased publication in ...

''. In 2013, the Camp Chase Railway ran approximately one train a day at less than . The company's tracks end in Lilly Chapel.

Rolling stock

CCRA owns three

EMD GP9 The EMD GP9 is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by Electro-Motive Diesel, General Motors' Electro-Motive Division between 1954 and 1963. The GP9 succeeded the EMD GP7, GP7 as the second model of EMD's General Purpose (GP) line, inco ...

engines, numbers 4618, 7042, and 7076. The railroad previously owned a GP9 engine numbered 7225 along with several

EMD SW1500 The EMD SW1500 is a diesel-electric switcher locomotive built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division from 1966 to 1974. The SW1500 replaced the SW1200 in the EMD product line. Many railroads regularly used SW1500s for road freight service. ...

. The current engines are painted orange and black, with white "Camp Chase" lettering. The railway also owned an older orange and white engine, number 752 with orange "Camp Chase Railway" lettering.

Camp Chase Trail

Metro Parks sign about Camp Chase Railway

The Camp Chase bike trail follows alongside the railroad except for a short stint along

Big Darby Creek Big Darby Creek is a scenic river located in northwestern central Ohio, and an important tributary to the Lower Scioto River. The river's major tributary is the Little Darby Creek. The river runs from its source near the Champaign- Union cou ...

and a one-mile diversion along Georgesville Road in Columbus. The trail connects to the larger

Ohio to Erie Trail The Ohio to Erie Trail is a dedicated multi-use trail crossing Ohio from southwest to northeast, crossing of regional parks, nature preserves, and rural woodland. The trail, named after its endpoints, extends from the Ohio River at Cincinnati ...

. To create the Camp Chase trail, Columbus and Franklin County Metropolitan Park District worked with the Camp Chase Rail Company to manage the regulations and construction requirements needed to acquire an easement alongside active railroad tracks,Ohio's Camp Chase Trail
by Christina Sturdivant Sani, ''America's Trails'', November 2021,

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) is an American nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works with communities to preserve unused rail corridors by transforming them into rail trails within the United States. RTC's purpose is to c ...

, 11/10/21 . finalizing the easement in 2009. The trail was completed in 2015. The bike trail is one of the few in the United States that is a

rails with trails Rails with trails (RWT) are a small subset of rail trails in which a railway right-of-way remains in use by trains yet also has a parallel recreational trail. Hundreds of kilometers of RWTs exist in Canada, Europe, the United States, Australia, ...

, meaning the trail runs within an active railroad right-of-way. The Camp Chase Trail has more than 12 miles of the bike trail existing within the railroad right-of-way. As of 2018, there were 343 identified rails with trails in the United States, comprising 917 miles of trails in 47 states. By comparison, there are currently 2,404 open rail-trails across the United States comprising a total of 25,723 miles along with 867 rail-trail projects planned for an additional total of 9,147 miles.National and State Trail Statistics
" Rails to Trails Conservancy, accessed August 19, 2023. A number of design elements separate the twelve-foot-wide trail from the rail line, including fencing, grade separation and ditching. As part of the agreement that resulted in the creation of the Camp Chase bike trail, the trail owners indemnified the railroad company. A bridge built for the bike trail provides a way for pedestrians to cross Interstate 270 instead of trespassing on the railroad bridge, as frequently happened before the trail was built. The trail manager is required to provide the railroad with advance notification of work on the trail and trail maintenance staff "attend railroad safety classes to adequately prepare them for the responsibilities and limitations of working within an active rail corridor."

References

Bibliography

; Reports * *

External links

Camp Chase Railway - Indiana BoxcarCamp Chase Railway - Midwest & Bluegrass Rail
{{DEFAULTSORT:Camp Chase Industrial Railroad Ohio railroads Railway companies established in 1994 Switching and terminal railroads Spin-offs of Conrail 1994 establishments in Ohio 2023 mergers and acquisitions