Omaha Lincoln & Beatrice

Company History: OL&B was chartered in 1903 as an interurban line intended to link its three namesake cities in Nebraska. By the end of that year, they had 5 miles of line in Lincoln and that was as far as they ever built.

In 1928, passenger service ended and a year later the line was purchased by construction supplier NEBCO which has owned it ever since. The line is the “home road” for the University of Nebraska, serving customers right on University Place in Lincoln. As a result OL&B paints its locomotives red and black and adopted a football helmet as its logo. It also adopted the motto, Big Red Line.

In addition to the parent company, customers include Ready Mix Concrete, Lincoln Lumber, Snyder Industries, ADM Farmland, and Ag Processing. Freight is interchanged with both Union Pacific and BNSF.

In the last 30 years, the OL&B diesel fleet has included, a GE 70-tonner, a GE 44-tonner, two former EMD switchers rebuilt by Republic Locomotive into RL-1500’s and the newest addition, a GP38-3.

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.