Huron Central 'RS-31' in LS&I cyan & yellow

Starting around 2009, Genesee & Wyoming started to periodically announce that they were going to shut the Huron Central down real soon now, then withdrawing that announcement after extracting a subsidy from the province or local communities. Then, starting around 2010, the LT&L started to announce that they were willing to purchase the Huron Central from the G&W, only to be pointedly ignored by the G&W as they raked in the government subsidies.

In 2016 the province started to lose patience with this whole deal and declined continuing subsidies (the polite word for what was actually said when a live mike was nearby) to the railroad under the current ownership.

Officials from the province asked the LT&L if they were still serious, and when they got an affirmative turned around and leaned politely on G&W Canada to consider selling. G&W Canada could read the subtext, so put the Huron Central up for sale (implicitly to the LT&L, which, not being fools, the LT&L immediately started writing checks for.)

So in January 2020 the LT&L took control of the railroad (such as it was) and immediately started taking care of deferred maintenance and trying to get recently departed shippers back onto the line.

The trackbed was in fairly sorry shape, so a handful of eco-e414 & RS-23 roadswitchers were brought in to run the line while the MOW crew(s) were running from spot to spot putting out (metaphorical) track fires.

New power started arriving in late 2020 – ILW delivered the solitary DL44 & a handful of RS-38’s to replace the RS-23’s – and the railroad operates with those units today..

  • Copyright © 2024 by Jessica L. Parsons (orc@pell.portland.or.us) unless otherwise noted
    Wed Apr 05 11:28:52 PDT 2023