Louisville and Indiana Railroad
The Louisville and Indiana Railroad (reporting mark LIRC) is a Class III railroad that operates freight service between Indianapolis, Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky, with a major yard and maintenance shop in Jeffersonville, Indiana. It is owned by Anacostia Rail Holdings.
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| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Jeffersonville, Indiana |
| Reporting mark | LIRC |
| Locale | Indiana and Kentucky |
| Dates of operation | 1994– |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Other | |
| Website | www |
The 106-mile (171 km) line was purchased from Conrail in March 1994. Previously, it was owned by Penn Central, and before that, the Pennsylvania Railroad. It serves the cities of Franklin, Sellersburg, Seymour and Columbus, Indiana, and also serves the former Clark Maritime Center, now Port of Indiana, Jeffersonville. In Louisville, the LIRC interchanges with the Paducah and Louisville Railway, CSX Transportation and the Indiana Rail Road, former Canadian Pacific Railway (via trackage rights over CSX's former Monon line). Traffic from them mostly is potash. In Indianapolis, the line interchanges with INRD at Senate Avenue Terminal.
The LIRC was briefly home to the Amtrak passenger train Kentucky Cardinal, a failed attempt to capture express business from the United Parcel Service air hub in Louisville. Inconvenient departure and arrival times, coupled with jointed track which limited speeds to 30 mph (48 km/h), led to the train's demise in 2003. The former express facility is now run by A&R Transport, which is a plastics transload facility. Plastics make up the majority of the online business with the railroad.
CSX negotiated trackage rights over portions of the LIRC in 2004. This enabled CSX to abandon a portion of former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad trackage from New Albany, Indiana to Jeffersonville, and access the remainder of the line to Charlestown, Indiana and the former Indiana Ammunition Plant using LIRC trackage over its Ohio River bridge. Additionally, CSX has used rights over the LIRC as far north as Seymour, where it connects with another former B&O line (now the CSX Indiana Subdivision at Seymour) from Cincinnati, Ohio to St. Louis, Missouri. These trains have been used to bypass the congested CSX LCL Subdivision between Cincinnati and Louisville.
The line's power includes GP39-2, GP38-2, and SD40-3's.
Jeffersonville Job Assignments are
J11A-Switches Jeff Yard in the daytime.
J12A-Local that works from Louisville to Scottsburg in the late afternoons.
J13A-Local that works Port of Indiana and Dutch Industrial Lead in the early evening hours.
Columbus Job Assignments are
Z550 works from Columbus to Indianapolis and return, including industry work in Columbus.
C32A works from Columbus to Jeffersonville overnight.
Extra Job Assignments are
JKN-Empty grain train that runs from NS in Louisville to Kokomo Grain in Edinburg. This job is called when needed.
KLS-Loaded grain train that runs from Kokomo Grain in Edinburg to NS in Louisville. This job is called when needed.