The Seaboard System Railroad, Inc. was a US

Class I railroad Railroad classes are the system by which Rail freight transport, freight railroads are designated in the United States. Railroads are assigned to Class I, II or III according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportatio ...

that operated from 1982 to 1986. Since the late 1960s,

Seaboard Coast Line Industries Seaboard Coast Line Industries, Inc., incorporated in Delaware on May 9, 1969, was a railroad holding company that owned the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad, its subsidiary Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and several smaller carriers. Its railr ...

had operated the

Seaboard Coast Line The Seaboard Coast Line Railroad was a Class I railroad company operating in the Southeastern United States beginning in 1967. Its passenger operations were taken over by Amtrak in 1971. Eventually, the railroad was merged with its affiliate li ...

and its sister railroads—notably the

Louisville & Nashville The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States. Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of t ...

and Clinchfield—as the "Family Lines System". In 1980, SCLI merged with the

Chessie System Chessie System, Inc. was a holding company that owned the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), the Western Maryland Railway (WM), and Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad (B&OCT). Trains operated u ...

to create the holding company

CSX Corporation CSX Corporation is an American holding company focused on rail transportation and real estate in North America, among other industries. The company was established in 1980 as part of the Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line Industries merge ...

; two years later, CSX merged the Family Lines railroads to create the Seaboard System Railroad. In 1986, Seaboard renamed itself

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a 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 track, it is the lead ...

, which absorbed the Chessie System's two major railroads the following year.

History

The Seaboard System's roots trace back to SCL Industries, a holding company created in 1968 that combined the Seaboard Coast Line's subsidiary railroads into one entity. In 1969, SCL was renamed

, which was known as the Family Lines System from 1972-1982, to better compete with the Southern Railway System. This entity adopted its own logo and colors, but each railroad maintained its own identity. Over time, this caused confusion among customers. In comparison to the neighboring

, which had four railroads, the Family Lines had six railroads. In 1971 SCL bought out the remaining shares and made the Louisville & Nashville a subsidiary. On November 1, 1980, Seaboard Coast Line Industries and Chessie System merged under the holding company

. Over the following seven years, the Chessie and Seaboard's various railroads were gradually merged into one. The first step came on December 29, 1982, when the

and

(under the Family Lines entity) were merged to form the Seaboard System Railroad, Inc. Considered as a "temporary railroad", the Seaboard System quickly began to merge the smaller railroads that were owned under the Family Lines System entity. This included the

Georgia Railroad Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of peo ...

and the

Clinchfield Railroad The Clinchfield Railroad was an operating and holding company for the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway . The line ran from the coalfields of Virginia and Elkhorn City, Kentucky, to the textile mills of South Carolina. The 35-mile segmen ...

(1983),

South Carolina Pacific Railway The South Carolina Pacific Railway was a shortline railroad operation that existed in eastern South Carolina in the late 19th century and much of the 20th century. The line was chartered in 1882 and completed in 1884. It ran 10.5 miles from Benne ...

(April 30, 1984), Louisville, Henderson & St. Louis Railway (July 1984), Gainesville Midland (1985),

Atlanta & West Point Railroad The Atlanta and West Point Rail Road was a railroad in the U.S. state of Georgia, forming the east portion of the Atlanta- Selma West Point Route. The company was chartered in 1847 as the Atlanta and LaGrange Rail Road and renamed in 1857; const ...

(June 1986) and the Columbia, Newberry & Laurens (June 1986). These mergers simplified equipment and management alongside the Chessie System railroads ( Chesapeake & Ohio,

Baltimore & Ohio The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the oldest railroad in the United States and the first steam-operated common carrier. Construction of the line began in 1828, and it operated as B&O from 1830 until 1987, when it was merged into the Chessie ...

Western Maryland upright=1.2, An enlargeable map of Maryland's 23 counties and one independent city Western Maryland, also known as the Maryland panhandle or Mountain Maryland, is the portion of the U.S. state of Maryland that typically consists of Washing ...

). The Seaboard System renamed itself

on July 1, 1986. On April 30, 1987, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was merged into the Chesapeake & Ohio. Finally, on August 31, 1987, the Chesapeake & Ohio (still under the Chessie System entity for corporate reasons) was merged into CSX Transportation. All the major railroads under CSX Corporation were now one company. (The Western Railway of Alabama would remain an

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 ...

until December 2002, when it was finally merged into CSX.)

Equipment colors and painting

After creation of the Family Lines name, SCLI begin painting locomotives in a standardized paint scheme. When the Seaboard System came into being, the new scheme retained the grey, red, and yellow colors were of the Family Lines scheme. The new Seaboard System also had a new logo featuring a coupled variation font of ITC Eras Demi. The first locomotive to be decorated with the new Seaboard System paint scheme was Uceta

GP16 The EMD GP16 is a series of rebuilt diesel locomotive, diesel-electric locomotives, a result of a remanufacturing program initiated by the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad (SCL) in an effort to spare the cost of purchasing new motive power in the la ...

#4802 in October 1982. Because the merger did not occur until December, locomotives after October 1982 were to receive the Seaboard System paint scheme with the existing railroad's reporting marks applied.''

Moody's Transportation Manual Moody's Ratings, previously and still legally known as Moody's Investors Service and often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its histori ...

'', 1992, pp. xxii-xxiv, 421-428, 451 When the merger officially took effect on January 1, 1983, all former reporting marks were to be either removed or patched with SBD initials. Shortly before taking delivery of the L&N specified

EMD SD50 The EMD SD50 is a diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division. It was introduced in May 1981 as part of EMD's "50 Series"; production ceased in January 1986. The SD50 was a transitional model between EMD's D ...

's, Seaboard adopted a Swis721 type font for reporting marks and numbers, instead of the customized

lettering seen on pre-1983 repaints. To simplify its locomotive roster and meet Chessie System specifications, Seaboard introduced a numbering system that partially became meshed within the Chessie System locomotive fleet, and removed any existing

Mars Light Mars Lights are signal-safety lights used in the United States and built by Mars Signal Light Company for railroad locomotives and firefighting apparatus. Mars Lights used a variety of means to cause the light to oscillate vertically, horizontally ...

s or Gyralights from locomotives. Any new locomotives purchased by Seaboard would be built to meet Chessie specifications; of which only three,

, EMD MP15T and

GE B36-7 The GE B36-7 is a 4-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by GE Transportation Systems between January 1980 and September 1985. 222 examples of this locomotive were built for North American railroads and eight units were built for a Colombian coal ...

, were ordered.

Heritage Units

In June 2023, GE ES44AH unit #1982 entered service, being repaired and repainted at CSX shops in Waycross, GA with a CSX blue and yellow color scheme on the front (nose) and cab of the locomotive and throughout the rest of the locomotive, the classic grey Seaboard System scheme. It was numbered #1982 in homage to the year the Seaboard System was created. A second heritage unit featuring The Family Lines System, a GE Evolution Series GE ES44AH unit #1972 entered service in March 2024.

Operating divisions

This section lists the operating divisions of the Seaboard System as of January 1, 1985: *

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

* Corbin *

Evansville Evansville is a city in Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 118,414 at the 2020 census, it is Indiana's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the most populous city in S ...

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

Jacksonville Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...

Louisville Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...

* Mobile *

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

Raleigh Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

Tampa Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...

References

CSX Transportation Family Merger Tree
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seaboard System Railroad Predecessors of CSX Transportation Defunct Florida railroads Defunct Georgia (U.S. state) railroads Defunct North Carolina railroads Defunct South Carolina railroads Defunct Virginia railroads Former Class I railroads in the United States Standard-gauge railways in the United States Railway companies established in 1982 Railway companies disestablished in 1986 Defunct Alabama railroads Defunct Ohio railroads Defunct Missouri railroads Defunct Illinois railroads Defunct Kentucky railroads Defunct Indiana railroads Defunct Tennessee railroads Defunct Louisiana railroads Defunct Mississippi railroads 1982 establishments in the United States