Dates of operation 1910–1915 | ||
Locale south of Cleveland, Ohio Track gauge 4 ft 8 ⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | ||
The Cleveland Short Line Railway was a freight bypass around southern Cleveland, Ohio on the New York Central Railroad's Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway system. It is now owned and used by CSX.
History
The Cleveland Short Line Railway was chartered November 24, 1902. The first section opened February 24, 1910, from the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway at Rockport, southwest of Cleveland, to the Lake Erie and Pittsburgh Railway (jointly owned by the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads) at Marcy, southeast of Cleveland. The rest of the line, from Marcy to the LS&MS at Collinwood, northeast of Cleveland, opened on July 1, 1912. In 1915 the company was merged into the New York Central Railroad, a year after the same was done with the LS&MS, and kept its name as the Cleveland Short Line.
The line became part of Penn Central in 1968 and Conrail in 1976. By the time of the Conrail breakup in 1998, the majority of trains through Cleveland used the original Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway line through downtown. Of those that used the bypass, over half only used it west of the former Pennsylvania Railroad's Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad (then Conrail's Cleveland Line). With the breakup, Norfolk Southern acquired the old main line through and west from downtown, up to the Cleveland Line split. CSX got the bypass, except at the west end, west of the crossing with the old Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway main line (at Short Line Junction), where Norfolk Southern uses it to access the old CCC&StL to downtown. Reciprocal trackage rights are given by each company to the other in case one of the routes is blocked.
The Cleveland Short Line east of Short Line Junction is now CSX's Short Line Subdivision, and is part of their main New York City-Chicago route.