Cincinnati Street Connecting Railway

The Cincinnati Street Connecting Railway connected the Indianapolis & Cincinnati and Little Miami railroads along the riverfront in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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The Cincinnati Street Connecting Railway (CSC) was built in 1864 to link the Little Miami Railroad (LM) on the east with the Indianapolis & Cincinnati Railroad (I&C) on the west. In 1877, the line was leased to the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railway Company (PC&St.L), a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR).

At the CSC’s eastern end, it connected to three routes: ³ the Louisville & Nashville Railroad (L&N) via the Newport & Cincinnati Bridge; the Panhandle Station, which provided access to terminal trackage serving the PRR’s circa-1881 Pearl Street passenger depot, nearby industrial tracks on Eggleston Avenue, and the Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern Railroad’s Court Street station; and the LM main line toward Milford, later known as the LM Oasis Line after 1962.

The PRR ended interchange of passenger cars over the CSC after Union Terminal opened in 1933. ¹ Penn Central, the PRR’s successor, continued to operate the line in 1968. With the creation of Conrail in 1976, the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad (DT&I) received trackage rights over the CSC to reach Southern Railway’s Gest Street Yard.

Beginning in the late 1970s, the city of Cincinnati sought the line’s abandonment to accommodate riverfront redevelopment, ¹ including Riverfront Stadium and Sawyer Point. ² Norfolk Southern, successor to Southern Railway, purchased the CSC in 1983 and operated it until 1986. ¹ The segment east of Broadway Street was removed in 2000. ^{1 2}

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Sources

1. Tipton, Rick. “The PRR in Cincinnati.” The Pennsylvania Railroad in Cincinnati. By Rick Tipton and Chuck Blardone. Altoona: Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society, 2004. 7-8.
2. Jakucyk, Jeffrey B. “Cincinnati Traction History.” 18 Jan. 2009 Article.
3. Tipton, Rick. “The PRR in Cincinnati.” The Pennsylvania Railroad in Cincinnati. By Rick Tipton and Chuck Blardone. Altoona: Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society, 2004. 55-56.