St. Mary's Railroad

People are telling me that the freight part of the railway is still operating, but you wouldn't know it with the very little traffic they get there. The base is lucky to get a few cars a month and the other customers don't do much shipping.
I heard through the grapevine that the guy running it (strickland) allegedly skipped town. He was the big force behind getting the St. Mary's West (Pearson, GA to Waresboro, GA) off the ground. So I haven't heard anything about that section of track either. Not looking good for St. Marys.

Grim, really GRIM.

ACLfan

RailLink will be providing service to that area starting sometime in April. CSX is letting it go. I don't know all the details involved, but RailLink has taken several local industries from CSX along the coastal GA area recently. They are operating out of the old Savannah railyard.

PChap wrote:RailLink will be providing service to that area starting sometime in April. CSX is letting it go. I don't know all the details involved, but RailLink has taken several local industries from CSX along the coastal GA area recently. They are operating out of the old Savannah railyard.

Where exactly are you talking about? Savannah or St. Mary's? Raillink's "Golden Isles Terminal Railway" took over the lead track out to East Savannah (Marine Terminal) area last year, but I'm not sure when the trains started moving. Raillink also has some train ops in the port up in NW Savannah. Riceboro Southern also took over ops on the line down to the mill in Riceboro.
I don't know what CSX's plans are for the line running north out of Jacksonville to St. Marys / Kingsland area. They can't dump it due to the military base, but they could lease it out to another operator.

I can see CSX wanting to lease out the section of track between Yulee, Florida and Kingsland, Georgia. The only traffic on that line was via interchange with the St. Marys RR. Now that the St. Marys RR is basically shutdown, the question is: who in their right mind would want to take over operations on a line with very negligible rail traffic?

CSX does a good business in Fernandina Beach, so I doubt that they would want to give up the operations between Jacksonville and Fernandina Beach.

ACLfan

Isn't there a mill at Seals above Kingsland that CSX serves?

The mill is experiencing some financial problems.

It shut down for awhile, but has recently reopened, but not yet on a full production schedule.

Service is on an as-needed basis.

ACLfan

Genesee & Wyoming has filed to lease from CSXT the lines from Yulee to Seals and also to Fernandina. This will be operated as the First Coast Railroad. Perhaps they'll take over St. Mary's as well.