Business View Magazine - September 2015

42 Business View - September 2015 Business View - September 2015 43 The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association Small customers are not small customers to small railroads All railroads in America began as short lines. From the first commercial railroad, the Granite Railway, built in 1826, to haul granite blocks from Quincy, Massachu- setts to the Neponset River for trans-shipment to Bos- ton, these independent, short line operations were fi- nanced and built by 19th century, entrepreneurial risk takers, within the communities they served, in order to move freight and people in local commerce. As the nation grew, and by the time the century had ended, more and more short lines were consolidated into regional systems that served ever widening areas of the country. These large railroads were owned by a coterie of wealthy industrialists (sometimes known as barons), and their shareholders. Those independent railway lines that either were not subsumed into these systems, or over time, became marginal and unprofit- able branches for the major lines that did own them, became the core of today’s short line railroad industry. The American Short Line and Regional Railroad As- sociation (ASLRRA) has been the voice of the short line industry since 1913, when 22 short line railroad managers met in Atlanta, GA, to form the Short Line Railroad Association (SLRA) of the Southeast. The new organization’s central purpose was to deal with legis- lative matters, primarily on the federal level. Annual dues were five dollars. By 1915, its membership had increased to 75. In 1916, the SLRA of the Southeast combined with the SLRA of the Southwest to form the Short Line Association of the South, with 115 mem- bers. That year, there were 254,037 miles of railroad track in the United States. Between 1917 and 1921, more short line organiza- tions merged together to increase the ranks of the logistics logistics