Long Haul Rail Freight Carriers in the

United States of America

A long double-stack container train of BNSF headed by four 4400hp Co-Co diesel electric locomotives
descends from the Tehachapi Pass, between Caliente and Bakersfield CA.

These pages deal with the contiguous United States of America, namely 48 states and the District of Columbia. For the remaining states, and other areas of particular railway interest, see the Main Index.

Freight railways in the USA are classified according to revenue rather than physical extent. The largest carriers, known as Class I Railroads, all cover a significant portion of the country and can therefore realistically be described as long haul. Other railways, Classes II & III, are sometimes known collectively as short lines; this is something of a misnomer, as some of them operate quite extensive regional networks. For these, see Regional and Local Freight Carriers.

This page lists all the present day Class I Railroads of the USA, together with other railways that are conveniently included here because of their size or extent. For each railway, a list is given of the states it serves.

• BNSF Railway Class I Railroad
  AL AR AZ CA CO IA ID IL KS KY LA MN MO MS MT ND NE NM NV OK OR SD TN TX UT WA WI WY and Canada
• CN Class I Railroad.
  AL IA IL IN KY LA MI MN MO MS NE OH PA TN VT WI WY and Canada
• Conrail Switching & terminal railroad jointly owned by CSX and Norfolk Southern. Conrail was formed in 1976 by the merger of several former railways in the north eastern USA. In 1998, it was sold to CSX and NS. The latter companies divided the majority of the Conrail assets, amalgamating them with their own systems. In a few areas, however, lines were to be operated on a joint basis. The Conrail name was retained for these lines.
  DE MI NJ NY PA
• CPKC Class I Railroad
  AL AR DC DE IA IL KS LA MD ME MI MN MO MS ND NJ NY OH OK SD TN TX VT WI Canada and Mexico
• CSX Class I Railroad
  AL CT DC DE FL GA IL IN KY LA MA MD ME MI MS NC NH NJ NY OH PA SC TN VA WV and Canada
• Norfolk Southern Class I Railroad
  AL DC DE FL GA IA IL IN KY LA MD MI MO MS NC NJ NY OH PA SC TN TX VA WV and Canada
• Union Pacific Class I Railroad
  AR AZ CA CO IA ID IL KS LA MN MO MT NE NM NV OK OR TN TX UT WA WI WY
• Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway Class II Railroad with extensive coverage in the states it serves
  OH PA WV

Don't recognize the two letter state code? Try hovering the mouse pointer over the code in question. In most browsers this will bring up a tooltip with the full name of state. Alternatively, see the complete list of state codes.