Kyle Railroad to be part of RailAmerica Fri. May 22, 2009; Posted: 11:05 AM PHILLIPSBURG, May 22, 2009 (The Salina Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The Mid-States Port Authority will officially transfer ownership of the Kyle Railroad on June 1 to RailAmerica. The Kyle is a short-line railroad that operates on 475 miles of track from Solomon to Limon, Colo. Shortlines are independently owned railroads that cover short distances. The Kyle's rail lines were once part of the Rock Island Railroad, which shut down in the early 1970s. Fearing that the track would be abandoned and a mode of transporting farm products would be lost, 14 Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado counties formed the Mid-States Port Authority in 1984 to acquire a portion of the Rock Island line. In April that year, the Federal Railroad Administration agreed to loan $18 million to the MSPA to purchase the rail line. That same day, the port authority entered into a long-term lease-purchase agreement with Kyle. The parent company of Kyle is RailAmerica, Boca Raton, Fla., which owns 41 shortlines. Kyle agreed to operate the line and pay monthly rent, which enabled MSPA to pay off its debt to the Federal Railroad Administration. On June 1, Kyle will exercise its option to purchase the railroad by purchasing the line for $1. 'Seamless' switch The Kyle's rail service will continue and the change in ownership should be "completely seamless," said Todd Bjornstad, Kyle's general manager, in a press release. The Kyle Railroad, with headquarters in Phillipsburg, employs 60 Kansas residents and serves 35 customers. Those include Scoular Grain, which has a grain terminal in Salina, and Tamko Building products, Phillipsburg. The Kyle railroad links with Class I railroads BNSF and Union Pacific in northwest and north-central Kansas. Agricultural products account for about 90 percent of the Kyle's annual shipments. Last year, more than 20,000 railcars moved over its tracks. Kyle currently invests more than $2 million a year to maintain and improve its rail line. Kyle and RailAmerica will honor the Mid-States Port Authority at a private June 17 dinner. A special tribute will be paid to MSPA founding members Dwain Compton, John Golden, Doyle Rahjes and Denis Sweat. To see more of The Salina Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go tohttp://www.salina.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Salina Journal, Kan. Distributedby McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
I thought all of Kyle's holdings were sold in 1998 - 1999, except for the Yreka Western, which was sold in 2000 to the Rocky Mountain Railroad & Mining Museum out of Denver, CO. Just shows ya ... one can always learn something new in here.
I just wish there could be a re-naming of the operation. Kyle RR, while I know and understand it's title origins, has always just seemed disconnected from it's physical operating area. Perhaps a name something like Colorado, Kansas & Nebraska RR would be available..... Boxcab E50
Got it. I missed your point entirely. G&W seems much more interested in actually running trains and making a business out of it than RailAmerica.
Y'all missed the significance of this announcement. RailAmerica has indeed owned the Kyle Railroad corporate assets for years now. The physical property, formerly belonging the the bankrupt Rock Island, was owned by the Mid States Port Authority, a government agency, then leased to and operated by Kyle Railroad. It will now own as well as operate the trackage. There are a lot of short lines, and some Class I main lines, that operate over tracks leased to them by government entities. Mainly states, but some local.
I find it interesting that in spite of RailAmerica's home being in Jacksonville for over a year now, the article still states it as being Boca Raton. There was a big to-do about the move of HQ. I hope they post a correction at some point.
Sadly all too true these days. You should see some of the massive editing errors and layout errors I've seen in some of the "professional" railroad industry magazines I've seen recently.
There's a bit of lag time on the internet. Too often, say, a company will change its address, yet several other websites that aren't updated automatically still show the old one. It can take a year or more for that change to really propagate throughout the internet. I prefer to go to the source on stuff like this, where the issue is an indisputable fact such as an address. If the company has it wrong on its own website, then I can just point to the source where I got it and shrug.
