Sand Springs

Company History: The SS was built in 1911 as an interurban line linking the Sand Springs Home (for widows and orphans) with Tulsa, Oklahoma 5 miles away. Operations began with gas motor cars but these were replaced as soon as the trolley wire could be hung. It wasn’t long before SS began to attract potential freight shippers along the way and an electric locomotive was purchased to handle this traffic. Over the years, passenger service waned and freight traffic increased. In 1955, passenger service came to an end (by that time, SS was the last interurban line in Oklahoma,) and diesels replaced electrics in freight service. In 1988, SS took over service to several MKT customers in the Sand Springs area. The Sand Springs Home had sold the railroad the year before and it would pass through more hands (including steel companies served by the railroad) until 2014 when Sand Springs joined the OmniTRAX family of shortlines. Today’s Sand Springs, under OmniTRAX, operates 32 miles of line hauling lumber, pulpboard, petroleum, plastics, scrap iron, scrap paper, and steel.

Successor/Parent History: OmniTRAX, Inc is one of North America’s largest private railroad and transportation management companies with interests in railroads, terminals, ports and industrial real estate. OmniTRAX operates a network of 21 regional and short line railroads that cover 12 states in the US and 3 provinces in Canada. The company’s railroads have interchanges with BNSF, CN, CSXT, NS & UP, and transport commodities within the Agricultural, Aggregate & Industrial Mineral, Energy, Food, Crude Oil, Chemical, Lumber, Metal, Petroleum and Plastic industries.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.