Oneida and Western Transportation
| Oneida & Western Transportation | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1979 |
| resolution | 1987 |
| Seat |
Knoxville , Tennessee ,
|
| Branch | Rail transport |
The Oneida & Western Transportation Company ( AAR - reporting mark: OWTX) was a rail vehicle operator in the United States of America that organized coal shipments for the Shamrock Coal Company on routes of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad , Seaboard System Railroad and CSX Transportation . Shamrock Coal owned and operated as one of the few American mining companies not only its own freight cars, but also its own locomotives for long-distance transport.
history
From the end of the 1960s, rail transports of hard coal from mines in the Appalachian Mountains increased significantly, both in terms of mass and distance, after numerous new coal-fired power plants were built in the southern and eastern states. For example, the amount of coal loaded on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N) routes in Kentucky , Tennessee and West Virginia increased in the 1970s to an extent for which the rail company was not prepared. The provision of empty freight wagons and their collection was often unreliable and delayed; the condition of infrastructure and material poor. An application to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in the second half of the 1970s and approved in 1979 to increase the fixed L&N freight rates by 22% met with the rejection of the shippers.
A clause in the ICC regulations, however, allowed lower rates to be charged if a shipper provided his own vehicles. The Shamrock Coal Company, operator of several mines in Kentucky and Tennessee, proposed such an agreement to L&N at the end of the 1970s - with Shamrock Coal not only providing freight cars, but also complete trains including diesel locomotives and cabooses as a first. The L&N agreed to the proposal, whereupon Shamrock Coal founded a subsidiary for rail transport and registered it with the Association of American Railroads (AAR). On the initiative of the Shamrock Coal owner B. Ray Thompson , this was named Oneida & Western Transportation (OWTX) based on the former Oneida & Western Railroad (O&W), which Thompson was known from his youth .
The OWTX purchased eight new EMD SD40-2 diesel locomotives from EMD , 144 freight wagons with 100 t loading capacity each from Youngstown Steel and two Cabooses from the International Car Company. All vehicles were painted in Shamrock Coal's code colors, two shades of green, and put into operation in late 1979. From then on, they were in use in two block trains put together specifically for Shamrock Coal between Manchester in southeast Kentucky and a power station owned by the South Carolina Electric & Gas Company east of Columbia in South Carolina . L&N ran the trains with its own staff, while OWTX provided the vehicles and Shamrock Coal acted as a forwarding agent and also influenced the route. After the L&N initially selected a route over the main route of its subsidiary Clinchfield Railroad through North Carolina , Shamrock Coal requested from the beginning of the 1980s primarily a route via Knoxville and Atlanta , since a higher punctuality is achieved there.
This partnership around OWTX was maintained after the merger of L&N with the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad to form the Seaboard System Railroad (SBD) in 1982. In 1987, at the same time as the reorganization of the SBD into CSX Transportation , Shamrock Coal , which had meanwhile been sold to the Sun Company , concluded a new transport contract with the SBD or CSX. Since the Staggers Rail Act was passed, freight rates could be freely negotiated since the end of 1980 and the transport volume was also to be increased beyond the capacity of the OWTX material, the provision of own vehicles was ended. The OWTX therefore initiated its liquidation and sold its diesel locomotives to the British Columbia Railway and the freight cars to a leasing company.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Ron Flanary: Why the 'green train' ran ... and why it doesn't any longer . In: Trains Magazine . April 2007 (English).
- ↑ Photos of the Oneida & Western Transportation vehicles. In: railpictures.net. Accessed June 21, 2020 (English).