Warren and Saline River Railroad


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 owned by Pinsly Railroad Company.
WSR traffic generally consists of outbound lumber and other forest products.

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 in 1910. A new Warren and Saline River Railroad was incorporated in March 1920 and took over the property. 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 from Pinsly.