The Fort Smith Railroad is a Class III

short-line railroad A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that operates over a relatively short distance relative to larger, national railroad networks. The term is used primarily in the United States and Canada. In the former, railroads are ...

headquartered in

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the List of municipalities in Arkansas, third-most populous city in Arkansas, United States, and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County, Arkansas, Sebastian County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the pop ...

. FSR operates of line in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

from Fort Smith (where it interchanges with

Kansas City Southern Railway The Kansas City Southern Railway Company is an American Class I railroad. Founded in 1887, it operated in 10 Midwestern United States, Midwestern and Southeastern United States, Southeastern U.S. states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Ark ...

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

, and Arkansas and Missouri Railroad) to

Fort Chaffee Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center, also known as Fort Chaffee, is an Arkansas Army National Guard Military base, installation located in western Arkansas, adjacent to the city of Fort Smith, Arkansas, Fort Smith. Established as Camp C ...

. FSR traffic generally consists of

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and ...

, food products,

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

products, scrap and finished

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), goober pea, pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics by small and large ...

alcohol Alcohol may refer to: Common uses * Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds * Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life ** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages ** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...

, military equipment, and

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

. The FSR currently operates with three ex-

Santa Fe Railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at variou ...

EMD GP20 The EMD GP20 is a 4-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by Electro-Motive Diesel, General Motors' Electro-Motive Division between November 1959 and April 1962. Power was provided by an EMD 567, EMD 16-567D2 16-cylinder (engine), cylinder turboc ...

locomotives. FSR is a subsidiary of

Pioneer Railcorp Pioneer Lines (formerly Pioneer Railcorp) was a holding company for a number of American short-line railroads. Other subsidiaries offered locomotive and freight car leasing to its own railroads and to third parties, and also freight car cleaning ...

History of the Line

The line over which FSR operates was built by the Arkansas Central Railroad, incorporated on April 29, 1897. The line was intended to stretch between Ft. Smith and

Little Rock Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...

, with a branch from a point about 50 miles west of Little Rock to

Hot Springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

. When the trackage was actually assembled between 1897 and its completion by January 1, 1900, the line only managed to run from a junction off the

Missouri Pacific Railroad The Missouri Pacific Railroad , commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad o ...

near Fort Smith to

Paris, Arkansas Paris is a city in Logan County, Arkansas, United States, and serves as the county seat for the northern district of Logan County; its southern district counterpart is Booneville. Its population was 3,176 as of the 2020 U.S. Census. Geography ...

, 42.879 miles, plus 8.214 miles of yard track and sidings, for a total of 52.093 miles. The line came under control of the Missouri Pacific in 1899, then was transferred in 1903 to the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway, then back to the Missouri Pacific when the Iron Mountain became part of the latter. The Missouri Pacific merger into the Union Pacific was approved by the ICC in 1982. The line was leased to the FSR on July 7, 1991. However, a portion of the line from Ft. Chaffee to Paris was abandoned in August of 1995, leaving the line from Ft. Smith to Ft. Chafee, about 18 miles. FSRR 2038

Locomotive roster

References

External links

Link to Union Pacific Website with FSR Details
Arkansas railroads Switching and terminal railroads Spin-offs of the Union Pacific Railroad Pioneer Lines {{US-rail-company-stub