Ventura County

Company History: The VCY was launched in 1911 with the sale of the Bakersfield & Ventura Railroad. For most of its history, VCY’s focus was hauling sugar beets for its parent American Crystal Sugar Company. ACSCo sold the railroad to a private party in 1958. In recent decades, the focus has shifted to moving automobiles from Port Hueneme (pronounced Wye-nee-mee) to a connection with Southern Pacific’s Coast Line at Oxnard, 13 miles away. The VCY was also known during this period for leasing their VCY reporting marks to the Golden West Service consortium. The RailAmerica shortline group leased the railroad in 1998, operating it as the Ventura County Railroad, using VCRR reporting marks. In 2003, the Oxnard Harbor District bought the property with RailAmerica continuing as the designated operator. Today, VCRR is part of the Genesee & Wyoming shortline family. In addition to the automobile business, they also move lumber, petroleum products and military equipment.

Successor/Parent History: Known today as the largest of the shortline holding companies, Genesee & Wyoming began as a shortline by that name in 1899 with a 15 mile line between Retsof and Caledonia, New York, just south of Rochester. In 1982, they extended southward to Greigsville by buying a former Lackawanna line from Conrail. In 1985, another purchase extended their reach north to Rochester and southwest to Silver Springs. This brought the mileage up to about 90. The Wyoming in the name is a reference to the Wyoming Valley.

In 1977, the railroad set up Genesee & Wyoming Inc. as a parent company. In 1985, they began to buy other shortlines and launch new ones as various Class One routes came up for sale or lease. Each of these lines operates under their own names but share the orange, yellow and black GNWR paint scheme, variations of which have been used by GNWR for decades. The logos of these related lines also use the GNWR style but with different wording and the occasional personalized element.

As of this writing, the Genesee & Wyoming family includes 121 shortline and regional railroads spread across North America, Europe and Australia. As of 2019, G&W became a subsidiary of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners. G&W has also bought other shortline groups, notably Rail Link in 1996, Summit View (the Ohio Central System) in 2008, Rail Management in 2005,.CAGY Industries in 2008, and largest of all RailAmerica in 2012.

Ironically, the Genesee & Wyoming Railroad was merged into the Rochester & Southern in 2003. The GNWR exists as a paper railroad but the logos on the diesels patrolling the old GNWR now say Rochester & Southern or the neighboring Buffalo & Pittsburgh.

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.