Lapeer Industrial Railroad

The Lapeer Industrial Railroad (reporting mark LIRR) is a short switching operation in Lapeer, Michigan, which owns and operates 1.34 miles (2.16 km) of track. It also leases 0.88 miles (1.42 km) of track from Canadian National Railway (CN). It interchanges with CN near the Lapeer Amtrak station. It is a subsidiary of Adrian and Blissfield Rail Road Company.

References

Industrial railway

An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics or military site. Industrial railways may be connecting the site to public freight networks through sidings, isolated (sometimes very far away from public rail or surface roads) or located entirely within a served property.

Overview

Industrial railways were once very common, but with the rise of road transport, their numbers have greatly diminished.

An example of an industrial railway would transport bulk goods, for example clay from a quarry or coal from a mine, to an interchange point, called an exchange siding, with a main line railway, onwards from where it would be transported to its final destination.

The main reasons for industrial railways are normally for one of two reasons: