Rockdale Sandow & Southern

Company History: The RSS was established in 1923 to take over a 6 mile private railroad between Marjorie and Sandow, Texas. The railroad officially became a common carrier in 1952. For most of their history, RSS was owned by Alcoa, and hauled raw material and finished products for the parent company’s aluminum mill. The first generation diesel fleet included a pair of S1’s, a pair of SW1200’s, a peculiar Plymouth switcher and a pair of RS-3’s which wore the same yellow and dark green paint scheme that afflicted the fleets of Alcoa sister roads Alton & Southern, Point Comfort & Northern and others for several years. In 1974, a trio of MP15’s arrived with Alcoa’s new black-and-white-and-red-all-over scheme. Locomotives from the PC&N were often seen lending a hand on the RSS. Alcoa sold the RSS to the RailAmerica shortline group in 2005 which later became part of the Genesee & Wyoming family of shortlines. By 2018, Alcoa had closed the mill and with no other customers, Genesee & Wyoming sold the RSS back to Alcoa who then applied to abandon it. The buy-back may have been triggered by a clause in the original sale agreement to RailAmerica.

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