As a manger of three short lines, 2 still with active traffic bases and one that is now in the process of abandonment becuase all of the customer left town and the state and they have built new high priced condos and homes all around the railroad and the city wants the railorad out of town so they can build a park and a trail.

On both the active lines business has grown. On one line it has grown over 20% every year since 2004 and there is no end in sight even with the economic downturn traffic is up. Every inquiry on possible new business answered and we work with the customer to get that traffic on out railroad by working with the two class one connections that we have. Yes two class one connections fighting to win business from out current and new customers. all our industires are open to the two big guys out west. any prosective customer who will commit and provide us with a solid business plan that makes sense has been located on out line. We meet with current customers each week to access how out service is and spend many hours helping possible new customers with both our class 1 connections and work to see they can ship by rail. To us weather its one car a week or 1500 cars a year every carload every employee understands that this is what keeps the light on al every one employed.

We never ever turn down business if it makes good sense the new customer is committed to use rail and a profit can be made on the traffic.

I take offense to the fact any one from a class one does not know how a shortline works, with 20 years on a class one time I left to go into the shortline business because its were you get back to railroading, providing excellent customer service and at least on my two shortlines having the best employees who care about the customer and doing a good job in the industry.

SLM is right that many shortlines are handcuffed by the agreements with class ones and I have attened many a meeting with SLM and never have heard of any shortline not trying to get new business if it has a good business plan, and will contibuite to the shortlines bottom line.
SLM and shortline Sammy are right in that we all cannot survive as not for profit companies, we have bills to pay, payroll to make and in the end the only way to do that is to get and then keep the business by giving good customer responsive service, going the extra mile to help our customers, work with them and the class ones carriers, be sure the business makes a profit. the business must be one the class one lines will support because without the class ones most shortlines cannot make it as we do not get from A to Z and back again.

Our mission Statement is to:
Operate in the safest manner, with "always being safe" as the number one tenet
Provide customer focused, service responsive to the customer needs everyday.
Providing our employees with a safe work place and a company they can be proud to work for.
Every employee must ensure and help to make a cost effective and profitable operations to sustain the Company.