On February 3, 1989, the rest of the former TP&W trackage was sold, along with a fleet of nineteen
EMD GP20 locomotives, at an undisclosed cost to TP&W Acquisition, a corporation founded by
SeaLand service director Gordon Fuller, and the TP&W Railway was revived as an independent company. The acquisition was a
leveraged buyout, and the TP&W was consequently in debt to multiple investment firms, including
Toronto-Dominion Bank, but Fuller, who became the TP&W's newest president, opted to use the railway's profits to pay back the firms. Fuller located the TP&W's newest headquarters in
Bound Brook, New Jersey, since the headquarters of multiple shipping corporations were nearby. The TP&W subsequently developed interchange partnerships with other railroads, including
CSX Transportation in
Watseka, the
Illinois Central (IC) in
Gilman, and the Southern Pacific in
Chenoa. They also began to interchange unit coal trains with CSX, but they quickly lost the contract to do so to the C&NW. By the mid-1990s, intermodal container operations accounted for 55% of the TP&W's total traffic, and most of the containers consisted of vehicle parts for the railway's primary customers: an
Isuzu plant in
Lafayette, a
Mitsubishi plant in
Normal, and
Caterpillar. The railway also regained their traffic around Logansport, since the
Winamac Southern Railway (WSRY) was created to operate some abandoned Conrail trackage in northern Indiana. Some of the TP&W's diesel locomotives were repainted in grey New York Central paint schemes, as a homage to the beginning of Fuller's railroad career at a NYC management training program and his former position as a Penn Central superintendent. In 1995, when the Santa Fe merged with the
Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) to create
BNSF, the TP&W was granted trackage rights over BN's line between Peoria and Galesburg. In May that same year, Fuller sold a 40% interest of the TP&W to the
New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (NYS&W) for $2.25 million, and the following year, the
Delaware Otsego Corporation (DO), the NYS&W's parent company, assumed full control of the TP&W. Fuller became an executive vice president with DO to continue operating the TP&W. Under DO ownership, the TP&W began to serve as a western terminus for the NYS&W's own intermodal operations out of the
New York City area. The TP&W's headquarters were relocated to DO's headquarters in
Cooperstown, New York, where DO
dispatched all of their subsidiaries. Nine of the TP&W's GP20s were rebuilt and repainted in the NYS&W's yellow-and-black paint scheme, and some of them were often transferred to operate for the NYS&W. By 1998, the TP&W reportedly turned a revenue profit of $13.4 million and hauled over 59,000 freight and intermodal trains. During that time, the NYS&W experienced some financial losses, since their intermodal traffic was on a decline. In 1997, when it was announced that Conrail would be split between CSX and
Norfolk Southern (NS), DO president and CEO Walter Rich explored ways to aid his fellow stockholders' demands. On February 11, 2005, the KJRY, which by then was a subsidiary of
Pioneer Railcorp, completed their acquisition of the west end of the TP&W's line between La Harpe and Peoria, adding to the KJRY's network. By 2010, the TP&W's traffic primarily consisted of agricultural products, including raw and processed grain products, chemical products, and completed tractors, but they were no longer operating intermodal trains. In December 2012, Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W) acquired RailAmerica, gaining ownership of the TP&W, and they began repainting all of their locomotives in G&W's orange-and-black paint scheme. == Accidents and incidents ==