By Justin Franz
Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley Railroad has been sold to Gulf & Atlantic Railways, an independent short line operator in the southeast owned by Macquarie Infrastructure Partners.
The deal was inked on August 19 and is subject to review by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which will more than likely approve it. The deal also includes Railroad Distribution Services, Inc., a warehousing and distribution company.
While the transaction made headlines in industry publications this week, just about all of them failed to note that the sale also marked the end of an era: The Pioneer Valley was the last short line owned by the legendary Pinsly Railroad Company, which at one time had operations up and down the east coast. Long before Genesee & Wyoming orange and black and Watco black and yellow had become the symbol of jointly-owned short lines, there was Pinsly red and yellow.
Pinsly was founded in 1938 when Samuel M. Pinsly purchased his first railroad, the Hoosac Tunnel & Wilmington Railroad in western Massachusetts, nicknamed the “Hoot, Toot & Whistle.” Through the 1940s and 1950s, Pinsly’s operation would expand to include a number of notable New England short lines, including the Sanford & Eastern in Maine, the Claremont & Concord in New Hampshire, and the St. Johnsbury & Lamoille County in Vermont. In the 1980s and 1990s, it expanded south making acquisitions in Florida and Arkansas. Over the course of the decades, the company would own more than a dozen short lines. Operations would come and go and by the 2000s, it only had the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts and the operations in Arkansas and Florida. In 2015, the Arkansas Midland was sold to G&W, and in 2020, the Florida Central, Florida Midland and Florida Northern were sold to Regional Rail.
In a statement to Railway Age, Pinsly CEO John Levine said, “We are very pleased to have reached an agreement to transition our Massachusetts business to G&AR. Pinsly has a long-standing commitment to safety, service, business development and capital investment. We believe G&AR will be a great steward of our business.”
Gulf & Atlantic presently controls five common carriers: Florida Gulf & Atlantic, Grenada Railroad, Camp Chase Rail, Chesapeake & Indiana and Vermilion Valley Railroad Company.
