The Warren and Saline River Railroad is an short-line railroad connecting Cloquet, Arkansas to the Arkansas Midland Railroad at Warren. It has always been independent of larger carriers, and was previously owned by the Potlatch Corporation, a lumber company, until January 2010. WSR is currently operated by the Arkansas Midland Railroad and was sold by Pinsly Railroad Company to sold to Genesee & Wyoming Industries in 2014.
WSR traffic generally consists of outbound lumber and other forest products.Edward A. Lewis, American Shortline Railway Guide, 5th Edition, Kalmbach Publishing, 1996, p. 326
History The Warren, Johnsville and Saline River Railroad was incorporated in August 1905 to serve logging operations in Bradley County. It opened a line from Warren south to Fullerton that year, and completed extensions from Fullerton to the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad near Hermitage in 1909 and to Goepel (Mt. Olive) in 1910.Interstate Commerce Commission, 119 I.C.C. 68 (1926): Valuation Docket No. 646, Warren, Johnsville & Saline River Railroad Company A new Warren and Saline River Railroad was incorporated in March 1920 and took over the property.Dew, Lee A. “The Arkansas Tap Line Cases: A Study in Commerce Regulation.” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 4, 1970, pp. 327–344. JSTOR. Accessed 15 Aug. 2021. A map showing the route is on Page 12 of 20. A TAP railroad line from the (Warren & Ouachita Valley railroad) at Glynn to New Edinburg, to Daughton and the (St. L. S. W. railroad)
The branch to Gospel was abandoned at some point, and in 1985 the mainline to Hermitage was cut back to Cloquet. The WSR also operates about five miles of the former Warren and Ouachita Valley Railroad, a connecting shortline which operated to the west from Warren.
On December 5, 2014, Genesee & Wyoming filed a Notice of Exemption with the Surface Transportation Board to acquire WSR along with AKMD and another affiliate Prescott & Northwestern Railroad (PNW) from Pinsly.dot.gov
References
External links Warren and Saline River Railroad official webpage - Genesee and Wyoming website