PICKING UP SOME OF THAT MONEY ON THE TABLE.

The six major North American freight railroads would prefer to move single-cargo, single-destination trains, although they will work with short lines that are able to provide remunerative volumes of traffic at their interchanges.  Add Pennsylvania's Strasburg Rail Road, better known as a steam tourist operation, to the list of short lines soliciting traffic in remunerative volumes.

The nation’s oldest short line, the 4½-mile-long Strasburg Rail Road in southeast Pennsylvania, last week opened a $3.3 million, six-track yard to handle its growing freight business.

Situated at Leaman Place Junction along Amtrak’s double-track electrified Keystone Corridor, the 7-acre site and interchange lies just off U.S. 30, the Lincoln Highway. Freight is delivered by Norfolk Southern’s H26 local, operating out of NS’s Dillerville Yard in the city of Lancaster, 11 miles west.

Overshadowed by Strasburg’s popular steam passenger runs, which attract 250,000 to 300,000 riders a year, the road’s freight business has fluctuated over the years, but has been on the upswing since 2009. It’s grown from 10 cars a year to almost 500, and freight trains run five days a week. Usually they’re powered by Strasburg’s ex-New York Central SW8 diesel switcher No. 8618, but occasionally a steam engine pitches in as well.

That's right, dear reader, revenue steam freight trains.

Commodities handled include inbound retail and specialty lumber, grain (wheat, oats, soybeans, and corn), and fertilizer. Outbound loads include agricultural products such as meal used in making pet food and tank cars of chicken fat that are used to make cosmetics.

The 500-car volume “is considered a minor miracle in the railroad world,” says Steve Weaver, a Strasburg vice president. Freight now makes up 10% of SRC’s revenue.

Of interest to ferroequinologists: public money for internal improvements that run on rails is nothing new.

One of the tracks occupies the right of way of an ancestor of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the state-owned Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad, which opened in 1834. To honor that heritage, Strasburg named it the P&C track.

Funding was provided through a public-private partnership, with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation supplying $3.3 million through its Rail Transportation Assistance Program. For its match, Strasburg provided about $800,000.

Additionally, Strasburg were able to deliver a car to a consignee who unloaded it promptly, and return the car to interchange on the same day, without any of the demurrage charges the big carriers with their precision scheduled railroading are prone to charge.  The service is apparently good enough to get a local business on track.  "I never knew you did freight, I thought you only did passenger trains."