Ohio Central
Railroad System
Steam Locomotives

ARTICLES
about
Ohio Central Steam

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THE OC STORY
"The Buckeye Route"

The Ohio Central Railroad System is a network of ten commonly-managed and operated short line railroads operating 455 miles of line in 18 counties in east-central Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania. Focusing almost exclusively a railroad lines which were out-of-service or to be abandoned, we have come from a modest beginning in 1984 when the then-35-mile OCRS handled 100 carloads of freight (about 3 carloads of freight per mile of railroad per year). Our commitment to timely and reliable service has been rewarded by our customers - in 2003 we moved 70,502 carloads of freight on 455 miles of railroad (155 carloads of freight per mile of railroad, a 52-fold increase in twenty years. Today's OCRS is powered by a fleet of 85 reliable diesel-electric locomotives and, for our passenger excursion business, 10 steam locomotives. Serving our freight and passenger customers requires cars and to meet this demand we have in invested in 1,202 freight cars and 25 passenger cars.

Operating "24/7" under the control of Coshocton-based dispatchers, OCRS trains serve almost 150 industries in 81 communities. We connect them with the entire North American railroad network of one-quarter million miles of track through multiple connections with the major Eastern railroads, CSXT and Norfolk Southern. Serving as Your Travel Agent for Freight OCRS Marketing officers constantly work with existing and prospective customers to show how today's railroad can safely and efficiently lower distribution costs and improve reliability.

Ohio Central hauls the earth's raw materials to manufacturing plants, and then delivers the finished products of American commerce. Each year we move mountains of bituminous coal-our single biggest commodity-to heat boilers and produce millions of megawatts of electricity. Our ten railroads also transport billions of pounds of metals (finished steel, aluminum, metal scrap), forest products (wood, milled lumber, paper, pulp), carloads of petrochemicals (oil, chemicals, fertilizers), products of agriculture (corn, corn syrup, soy beans, flour), and industrial minerals (soda ash, rock salt, cement). The railroad is the key transportation component in many items of your daily life; the electric light you switch on at night - powered by coal moved on the OCRS, that soft drink you enjoy on a hot summer day-sweetened with corn sweetener moved by the carload on the OCRS, even that cardboard box that your latest purchase is packed in-made with linerboard moved on the OCRS. Railroads, more than ever, are moving the goods that make your daily life possible and affordable.

The OCRS is a safe railroad whether you are shipping on it, riding it, or just passing by. We even improve highway safety and national security in ways you would not expect-last year it would have required 564,016 one-way trips by tractor-trailer trucks on your publicly-owned and maintained highways to carry the freight the privately-owned and maintained OCRS carried. Besides doing all this work at no cost to the taxpayer we used one gallon of diesel fuel to do the same work trucks would have needed four gallons to do. All we OCRS railroaders ask is a level playing field from government to let us to what we do best-safely and economically carry you and your goods.

From humble beginnings 20 years ago with just two employees, today's Ohio Central Railroad System employs 155 people. These are newly created jobs that did not exist until our little railroad began operations and started turning its dreams into reality. Our ten railroads and their employees pay taxes, purchase goods and services, and put millions of dollars back into local economies in ways no one thought possible a generation ago. Each year Ohio Central invests millions of dollars into our physical plant with the installation of new rails and crossties, renewed bridges and tunnels, improved highway crossings, and improvements to our signal system. In 1996 alone we constructed a $4-million locomotive repair shop near Coshocton and created many additional full-time locomotive maintenance employee positions. In general, for every three miles of decrepit and neglected railroad track Ohio Central has saved and placed back into service, another person became employed at our railroad with a good, steady job.

Ohio Central's vision is toward the future of route expansion and creation of additional, new employment opportunities on this railroad. As the larger, main line railroads seek to abandon their tracks and get rid of long-time employees in order to cut service and save money, the Ohio Central seeks to acquire their rusting tracks, to expand customer service, hire additional employees, and put that otherwise "lost" money back into the economies of on-line communities. When railroads live, everyone wins, but when railroads die, everyone loses.

We are unique in that we not only operate in today's world, but it also have strong ties to the past with an appreciation of steam locomotives, passenger trains, and historic diesels of yesteryear. Largely the outgrowth of the dreams of a young boy growing up in the 1950s, our roster of 10 steam locomotives, 25 passenger cars and 16 historic diesels can't be beat when it comes to running old-time trains and having a good old time. In fact, the Ohio Central Railroad System is the largest private operator of passenger trains in the State of Ohio. Our vintage passenger fleet is fun to see and ride, and also is an integral part of the OCRS's overall business plan. It is operated on a profit-making basis with proceeds from operation being used to finance restoration, maintenance and future operation. It is our hope that the steam and passenger operations continue to pay for themselves, as we would love to enjoy these rare, historic and wonderful old-timers for many years to come.