Des Moines Union

Company History: The DMU ran 30 miles of terminal trackage in the Des Moines, Iowa area. The company was launched in 1884 ostensibly to provide a union station to its parents Wabash and Milwaukee Road with Burlington Route and Chicago Great Western as tenants. Gradually, all of the passenger service to the station was curtailed with Wabash doing the final honors in 1959. From that point on, DMU was an all-freight terminal line. Dieselization began in 1940 with a trio of Alco S-1’s, joined by a fourth S-1 in 1946. The first three were sold to parent Wabash in 1964 and replaced by a like number of NW2’s leased from Wabash. They were returned to Wabash successor N&W around 1971 along with the last remaining S-1. At that point, the parents (N&W and MILW by that time) provided the power. The DMU was finally merged into Norfolk Southern in 1989.

Successor/Parent History: The Norfolk Southern Railway (reporting mark NS) is a Class I railroad in the United States; began in 1982 and 1990. With headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, the company operates 36,200 route miles in 22 eastern states, the District of Columbia, and has rights in Canada from Buffalo to Toronto and over the Albany to Montreal route. NS is responsible for maintaining 29,000 miles, with the remainder being operated under trackage rights from other parties responsible for maintenance. The common commodity hauled on the railroad is coal from mines in Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The railroad also offers the most intermodal network in eastern North America.

NS is a major transporter of domestic and export coal. The railroad's major sources of the mineral are located in: Pennsylvania's Cambria and Indiana counties, as well as the Monongahela Valley; West Virginia; and the Appalachia regions of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In Pennsylvania, NS also receives coal through interchange with R.J. Corman Railroad/Pennsylvania Lines at Cresson, Pennsylvania, originating in the "Clearfield Cluster". NS's export of West Virginia bituminous coal, begins transport on portions of the well-engineered former Virginian Railway and the former N&W double-tracked line in Eastern Virginia to its Lambert's Point coal pier on Hampton Roads at Norfolk. Coal transported by NS is thus exported to steel mills and power plants around the world. The company is also a major transporter of auto parts and completed vehicles. It operates intermodal container and TOFC (trailer on flat car) trains, some in conjunction with other railroads. NS was the first railway to employ roadrailers, which are highway truck trailers with interchangeable wheel sets.

The Norfolk Southern Railway's parent Norfolk Southern Corporation is a Norfolk, Virginia-based parent company. Norfolk Southern Corporation was incorporated on July 23, 1980 in the Commonwealth of Virginia and is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbols NSC. The primary business function of Norfolk Southern Corporation is the rail transportation of raw materials, intermediate products, and finished goods across the Southeast, East, and Midwest United States. The corporation further facilitates transport to the remainder of the United States through interchange with other rail carriers while also serving overseas transport needs by serving several Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports. As of October 1, 2014 Norfolk Southern Corporation's total public stock value was slightly over $34.5 billion.

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