JK Line

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JK Line
legal form Corporation
founding 1990
resolution 2004
Seat Monterey , Indiana ,United StatesUnited States
Branch Rail transport

The JK Line Inc. ( AAR reporting as mark: JKL) was a Class-3 local railroad - railway company , which until early 2003 in the US state from 1990 Indiana freight sector, especially grain shipments, revenue on an approximately 26 km stretch.

history

On April 1, 1976, the newly founded Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) took over, among other things, a large part of the activities of the insolvent Erie Lackawanna Railway (EL), but not their main line between Marion (Ohio) and Chicago. After the Erie Western Railway and the Chicago & Indiana Railroad could not continue to operate the approximately 256 km long section in the state of Indiana, the almost 26 km long section between North Judson and Monterey was taken over by the Tippecanoe Railroad in 1980 .

On April 24, 1990, the entrepreneur Daniel J. Frick acquired the railway company and renamed it JK Line Inc. after the initials of the names of his two daughters; occasionally also referred to as JK Lines . Frick was a co-owner of the agricultural trading company Frick Services, which had bought the grain silo from Buckeye Feed & Supply in Monterey in 1989. This silo was almost the only freight customer of the Tippecanoe Railroad. In 1993, Frick also acquired the Winamac - Logansport railway line and operated it initially via its Winamac Southern Railway (WSRY) and, from 1995, as the A&R Line to secure the rail connection to the Frick grain silo in Winamac. JKL, A&R and WSRY cooperated in rail operations, for example by exchanging vehicles and personnel.

In the summer of 1997, Cargill acquired four grain elevators in Indiana from Frick. With the plants in Monterey and Winamac, Frick also sold JKL and A&R to Cargill. As of October 14, 1997, the Marksman Corporation leased the JKL and A&R routes. The implementation of freight traffic on both routes was transferred to the Marksman subsidiary Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway (TPW). As of September 17, 1998, the lease was simplified by TPW entering into the lease directly without Marksman being involved. Marksman and TPW were acquired by RailAmerica in 1999 .

On October 18, 2002, RailAmerica applied to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to acquire JKL and A&R from Cargill and their merger with TPL. At the same time, the closure of the JKL and part of the A&R was requested. For its part, Cargill had announced the closure of the grain silos in Monterey and Winamac. The STB granted the application on December 11, 2002. The JKL track system between North Judson and Monterey was dismantled in 2004 and 2005 with the exception of a short section in North Judson. The route was left to the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum in North Judson and is used in sections as a cycle path ( rail trail ). The JKL company existed until 2004 as a RailAmerica subsidiary without any business operations.

Infrastructure

The JKL route was an approximately 26 km (16 mile ) section of the former EL mainline to Chicago between mileposts 183 in Monterey and 199 in North Judson. In North Judson there was a connection to a route operated by CSX Transportation . The JKL did not serve any intermediate stations.

traffic

Practically JKL's only freight customer was the grain silo and agricultural warehouse of Frick Services, later Cargill, in Monterey. In the mid-1990s, around 1,400 freight wagons with grain and fertilizers were transported annually.

vehicles

The JKL used an EMD type SD18 diesel locomotive originally built for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway , which was taken over from the Tippecanoe Railroad . A small depot in Monterey was available for storage and maintenance.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ H. Roger Grant: Erie Lackawanna: The Death of an American Railroad, 1938-1992 . Stanford University Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-8047-2798-3 , pp. 212-213 (English).
  2. ^ Interstate Commerce Commission : Car Service: Tippecanoe Railroad Co. Authorized to Operate Over Tracks Leased From the State of Indiana . In: Federal Register . tape 45 , no. 9 , January 14, 1980, p. 2655 (English).
  3. ^ A b c d Edward A. Lewis: American Shortline Railway Guide (5th Edition) . Kalmbach Publishing, Co., 1996, ISBN 978-0-89024-290-2 , pp. 12; 163 (English, Lewis calls the railway company "JK Lines"; the official name according to Surface Transportation Board sources, however, was "JK Line").
  4. ^ Richard S. Simons: Railroads of Indiana . Indiana University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-253-33351-3 , pp. 185 (English): “Daniel R. Frick (named) it for his two daughters”
  5. ^ Surface Transportation Board : Cargill, Incorporated-Acquisition of Control Exemption-A&R Line, Inc. and JK Line, Inc. [STB Finance Docket No. 33458] . In: Federal Register . tape 62 , no. 182 , September 19, 1997, p. 49294-29295 (English, full text; PDF ): “The rail lines will be purchased from Daniel R. Frick, the sole shareholder of the rail lines, and are part of a larger transaction involving the purchase of four facilities for the storage and distribution of bulk commodities, fertilizers and agricultural chemicals. The rail lines provide the transportation services to two of the four facilities being purchased by Cargill. ”
  6. ^ Surface Transportation Board : Marksman Corporation; Lease and operation exemption; JK Line, Inc. [STB Finance Docket No. 33481] . In: Federal Register . tape 62 , no. 200 , October 16, 1997, p. 53874 (English, full text ): “Marksman (...) to lease from JK Line, Inc., and to operate 17 miles of rail line (from) Monterey, to milepost 199, near North Judson (...) earliest ( ...) October 14, 1997 ”
  7. ^ Surface Transportation Board : Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway Corp-Corporate Family Transaction Exemption-Marksman Corp [STB Finance Docket No. 33569] . In: Federal Register . tape 63 , no. 193 , October 6, 1998, p. 53744 (English).
  8. ^ Surface Transportation Board : Rail America Inc. Et Al-Control and Merger Exemption-A & R Line Inc. and JK Line, Inc. [STB Finance Docket No. 34269] . December 2, 2002 (English, full text ).
  9. ^ Remembering the JK Line. Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum, accessed March 24, 2020 .