{"id":103630,"date":"2026-11-01T02:00:28","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T07:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=103630"},"modified":"2026-10-31T09:42:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T13:42:02","slug":"why-do-shortline-railroads-exist-railroad-economics-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/why-do-shortline-railroads-exist-railroad-economics-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Shortline Railroads Exist? | Railroad Economics 19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_yNfHWiLwMA?si=UZ831ucD5ej0wCsx\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Railroad Economics<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 14 Jul 2026<\/p>\n<p>Every day, thousands of freight cars are delivered by railroads you&#8217;ve probably never heard of. These smaller companies, known as shortline railroads, play a critical role in the North American freight network by serving customers that the major Class I railroads often can&#8217;t do efficiently.<\/p>\n<p>In this episode of <em>Railroad Economics<\/em>, we explore why shortline railroads exist, how they make money, what they haul, and why the largest railroads depend on them to complete the &#8220;last mile&#8221; of freight service. From industrial switching to local customer service, these small railroads are an essential part of the railroad business.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve ever wondered why there are so many different railroad names on freight trains, this video explains the economics behind it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Railroad Economics Published 14 Jul 2026 Every day, thousands of freight cars are delivered by railroads you&#8217;ve probably never heard of. These smaller companies, known as shortline railroads, play a critical role in the North American freight network by serving customers that the major Class I railroads often can&#8217;t do efficiently. In this episode of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[831,25,237,13],"tags":[1026],"class_list":["post-103630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-economics","category-railways","category-usa","tag-microeconomics"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-qXs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103630"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105631,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103630\/revisions\/105631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}