20th century The Youngstown and Southern Railway (Y&S) and Youngstown and Salem Railroad were both incorporated in May 1903, and the former absorbed the latter in October of that year. It began operations in 1904 as a
steam line between
Youngstown and
Columbiana, and
electrified the line with
overhead wires in 1907, also extending it to
Leetonia on the
Youngstown and Ohio River Railroad (Y&OR) that year. In addition to carrying
passengers as an
interurban railway, the company handled
freight, primarily
coal from the electric Y&OR and the steam
Pittsburgh, Lisbon and Western Railroad (PL&W). After the Y&S entered
receivership in 1915, a 1916 reorganization produced the
Youngstown and Suburban Railway. In the late 1920s and early 1930s,
Mahoning Valley industries and the
Pittsburgh Coal Company attempted to build a new rail line between the
Ohio River and Youngstown, claiming that the existing railroad connections (
Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad and
Pennsylvania Railroad) refused to build suitable
river transfer facilities. The
Interstate Commerce Commission denied the application in exchange for the construction of these facilities. Later the coal company built a
private railroad from the river at
Smiths Ferry, Pennsylvania to the PL&W at
Negley, Ohio, where it connected to Youngstown through control, by its
Montour Railroad subsidiary, of the PL&W (
New Galilee, Pennsylvania to
Lisbon, Ohio) and Y&S (the latter acquired in 1928 The Y&S changed its name back to Youngstown and Southern Railway in 1944, By 1960 the Y&S had completely
dieselized. The newly created
PL&W Railroad began operating the Y&S under lease on May 1, 1993, and transferred the lease to the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad (O&P), a part of the
Ohio Central Railroad System, on June 14, 1995. The Negley-Smiths Ferry line was abandoned in 1996, having gone at least two years without seeing a train, leaving only Youngstown-Darlington for the O&P to operate. The P&LE filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 22, 1996. When the O&P declined to purchase the leased trackage from the Y&S, the owner sold it to
Railroad Ventures, Inc. (RVI) on November 8. RVI immediately, illegally, the federal
Surface Transportation Board (STB) investigated, and the O&P and RVI negotiated a new lease agreement in early December. But only two weeks later, the line was washed out by flooding, and the O&P issued a second embargo on December 18. RVI belatedly filed with the STB for authorization to purchase the line in January 1997, but it was rejected because RVI did not acknowledge its
common carrier obligation and the Midwest & BlueGrass Rail alleged that RVI would not provide that service. A second filing in April was approved after RVI agreed to operate the line. RVI did not allow the CCPA to repair the line or carry out any repairs itself, instead filing for abandonment in January 1999 and again in May. CCPA submitted an offer of financial assistance to buy the line in September, and asked the STB to establish its value. The STB penalized RVI for its "blatant disregard of its common carrier obligation to provide service", including several sales and agreements it had made and kept secret. Only 20 days after purchasing the line in 1996, RVI had sold the "debris" This too proved problematic, when RVI interfered with the
escrow fund set up for this purpose, and the STB ordered the money transferred directly to the CCPA in November 2001. and the new Central Columbiana and Pennsylvania Railway, a subsidiary of
Arkansas Short Line Railroads, Inc., began operations between Youngstown and Boardman Supply in
Boardman Township on May 31. On August 31, the entire line was reopened when a CQPA train reached the end in
Darlington. Although it had increased its business to serve 9 customers, the CQPA, and its parent Arkansas Short Line Railroads, suffered from cash flow problems, which limited its ability to make repairs to handle the increased traffic, and it filed for bankruptcy in June 2004. The Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad resumed temporary operations in December 2004, but decided not to continue the lease upon the conclusion of the bankruptcy proceedings. Total Waste Logistics, the line's primary customer, formed the Eastern States Railroad and acquired the lease in November 2006. Simultaneously, the Eastern States Railroad contracted with the
Indiana Boxcar Corporation, which created a new subsidiary, the Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad, to operate the line. In 2000, when the
Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) reconsidered its determination that RVI was an employer under the
Railroad Retirement Act and
Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, it created a three-part test for deciding whether a non-operating lessor, which still retains the residual common-carrier obligation if the lessee ceases operations, is a covered employer. For the company to pass this "Railroad Ventures test", and therefore not be covered, the following must all be true: • The primary business purpose of the company is not to profit from railroad activities. • The company does not operate its line or retain that capacity. • The operator of the line is or would be a covered employer. Since RVI's primary purpose was to profit from selling off the line, it failed the test. This was a departure from earlier decisions, which had cited a 1989 determination that the
Board of Trustees of the Galveston Wharves was not a covered employer to declare any such non-operating company not covered. The test has been applied to declare, for example, the Eastern States Railroad not covered (since it was created to preserve service rather than to profit) and
Pennsylvania Lines, LLC covered (since it was wholly owned by
Conrail, a for-profit carrier, and thus presumed to be for-profit). In 2019, Indiana Boxcar transferred their Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad to
Midwest and Bluegrass Rail. ==References==