New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad Depot in Laurel, Mississippi, in the early 1900s.
(Credit: Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
NEW ORLEANS AND NORTHEASTERN RAILROAD
The New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad (reporting mark NONE) was a Class I railroad in Louisiana and Mississippi in the United States. The railroad operated 196 miles (315 km) of road from its completion in 1883 until it was absorbed by the Alabama Great Southern Railroad subsidiary of the Southern Railway in 1969.
History
The New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad was incorporated in 1868 in Louisiana (under the name of Mandeville and Sulphur Springs Railroad until 1870) and 1871 in Mississippi. No track was built, however, and the company's land lay unused until 1881, when control of the company was acquired by the Alabama, New Orleans, Texas and Pacific Junction Railways Company. Construction on the line began in 1882. The line opened in 1883 and extended 196 miles from New Orleans to Meridian, Mississippi.
In 1916 the Southern Railway acquired the NO&NE, which had been marketed as a portion of the Queen and Crescent Route since the 1880s. From that point on the NO&NE owned or were assigned locomotives and other equipment with Southern lettering, but they carried NO&NE sub-lettering until the line was merged into the Alabama Great Southern in the late-60s, at which time sub-lettering was changed to AGS.
In 1969, as part of an effort to simplify its corporate structure, the Southern Railway's Alabama Great Southern Railroad operating subsidiary merged the NO&NE, ending its existence on paper.
In 1960 NO&NE reported 746 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 13 million passenger-miles; at the end of that year it operated 203 miles of road and 368 miles of track.
Today
The line presently remains in operation. After a merger with the Norfolk and Western Railway, the Southern Railway changed its name to the Norfolk Southern Railway in 1990.
