Eastern Railroad Discussion > Ohio Short Line Sale Complete

A short line hold company has completed the acquisition of the Cincinnati Eastern Railroad.
Regional Rail LLC now owns seven railroads in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
CE is a 70-mile network operating east of Cincinnati, using trackage owned by Norfolk Southern in Ohio between Clare and Plumb Run.
Principle freight hauled includes aggregates, food and agriculture, and paper products.

With its partner 3iGroup, Regional Rail holds 16 operations providing rail operations, car storage, and transloading in the U.S. and western Canada, along with crossing signal design, construction, and maintenance through subsidiary Diamondback Signal. From the akronrrblog

That happened quicker than expected. This line has great prospects for the future. A line that NS allowed to wither to nearly nothing.

They have good traffic now, but a new dog food plant will be coming online in a year or so with the promise of substantial rail traffic.

Posted from Android

So east of Plum Run is becoming a trail as part of the Cincinnati Southern sale agreement?

I hope the Cincinnati Eastern will fare well with its ownership of the remainder of the Peavine.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/24 10:55 by ts1457.

Ohio has good corporate taxes.  Southern Ohio has lots of people looking for work.  Generally non-union in those counties.  A good atmosphere to build a short line.  

Regional Rail began operations of the Cincinnati Eastern on 7/2/24.  The line is in good hands - Regional Rail has a great track record and is well funded.  Their ownership will take the CCET to the next level.  Construction to hook up Purina's network of track to the CCET mainline will start very soon.  Purina's nearly 9000 feet of track is complete, but CCET needs to build 1100+ of track over a fill through a wetland to connect it into Afton Yard.  It's taken quite of bit of work, perseverance, and patience working with the US Army Corp and EPA for all the various permitting and environment mitigation projects.   Watch for continued physical plant improvement over the length of the line over the next several years.  

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ts1457 Wrote:
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> So east of Plum Run is becoming a trail as part of
> the Cincinnati Southern sale agreement?

Yes, nothing changes on that front.  500 +/- feet east of east switch at Rarden to Vera will be abandoned and removed.  Details are being ironed out right now - expect a STB filing and quick rubber stamp approval probably in next 90-120 days.   CCET will dead end at new end of track.  If anything between Jaybird Road and end of track is ever used, it would strictly be for car storage unless something crazy happens.  

scraphauler Wrote:
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> Regional Rail began operations of the Cincinnati
> Eastern on 7/2/24.  The line is in good hands -
> Regional Rail has a great track record and is well
> funded.  Their ownership will take the CCET to
> the next level.  Construction to hook up Purina's
> network of track to the CCET mainline will start
> very soon.  Purina's nearly 9000 feet of track is
> complete, but CCET needs to build 1100+ of track
> over a fill through a wetland to connect it into
> Afton Yard.  It's taken quite of bit of work,
> perseverance, and patience working with the US
> Army Corp and EPA for all the various permitting
> and environment mitigation projects.   Watch for
> continued physical plant improvement over the
> length of the line over the next several
> years.  

Are you affiliated with the new ownership group, or are you out of the picture?  Since the demise of the Indiana Railroads Forum, I have kind of lost track of what you are doing, or why you are in North Carolina now. 

junctiontower Wrote:

> Are you affiliated with the new ownership group,
> or are you out of the picture?  Since the demise
> of the Indiana Railroads Forum, I have kind of
> lost track of what you are doing, or why you are
> in North Carolina now. 

I'm an employee of Regional Rail now.  I will still have some market and sales duties on the CCET, but some of those are transitioning over the the Midwest guy who handles Burns Harbor, Indiana Eastern, Ohio South Central, etc, plus all of my various operational duties and transitioning to the new General Manager.  I am taking on a bunch of new challenges and duties inside Regional, and I continue with my Cardinal Railcar side business.   Why I am in NC is because wife and I wanted to be in NC. I had the flexibility to work wherever, and she works for a major firm out of RTP with direct and indirect reports all over the world, so it really doesn't matter where she is, but greater RTP area made sense plus we had several friends down here, so figured why not.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/24 13:09 by scraphauler.

If they connect with both C1s as well as G&W in Cincinnati I would agree their future is bright.

A bit less so if they only connect to NS, but the lower operating cost structure probably still portends growth as seen with the new Purina plant.

The Peavine was never going to survive as a through NS route though.