NS/CNO&TP/Sou/Cincinnati Southern Railway Overview

To explain the title, Cincinnati built and owns the Cincinnati Southern route, but it now leases it to the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Norfolk Southern.

Excerpt from LoC

Normally, when I use the notation NS/Sou/CSR, it means the evolution of ownership. In this case it is the succession of operation and maintenance responsibility because Cincinnati, OH, still owns it.

I learned of the Cincinnati Southern  Railway while studying a railroad lift bridge in Chattanooga:

Line is owned by and was built for the Cincinnati Southern Railway which is owned by the city of Cincinnati, Ohio. The Line was leased to Southern Railroad, now part of Norfolk Southern. [Bridge Hunter] 

I've read of many towns that built their own railroad in the 1800s. But that was normally to access the nearest navigable water (river or canal). This is the first time I have seen the movers and shakers in a town on a river instigate the construction of a railroad. And such a long railroad (337 miles). And the city owned it. And it still owns it: "Cincinnati still owns the Cincinnati Southern  Railway and leases its use to Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (CNO&TP), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Norfolk Southern." [CSR]

The construction of this line had to be expensive. They had to build at least two big bridges --- Ohio River and Tennessee River. (I just learned that Bridge Hunters will list all of the bridges for a railroad.) They also had to build across some very hilly, if not mountainous, country.

(Facebooked)

Update: they used to have some repair shops and a roundhouse in Ferguson, KY.

safe_image for Norfolk Southern could buy Cincinnati-owned railroad
NS offered $1.6b instead of leasing it for another 25 years.
"Currently, the city receives roughly $26 million a year according to terms of the lease.According to sources, the sale would potentially swell that annual revenue to $50 million or $60 million."

The black line between Cincinnati and Chattanooga on this Southern Railway map would be  the Cincinnati Southern Railway.

AtlantaHistoryCenter (Source), 1908, Kenan Research Center at Atlanta History Center via Dennis DeBruler