Canton has traditionally been a blue-collar neighborhood, and for more than 100 years, the Canton Railroad Co. has been a part of that mix, moving freight for local industries and the port of Baltimore.
Its locomotives are a familiar — and at times frustrating — sight for those traveling into Canton from the east, where the company's tracks crisscross Boston and O'Donnell streets. Long trains sometimes mean long waits for drivers.
John C. Magness, the company's president and CEO, said the state-owned railroad's core mission continues. However, it also is aware that more residents than ever live in the increasingly urbanized, bustling neighborhood — and it wants to be a good neighbor.
The Baltimore Sun caught up with Magness to get his thoughts on where the company is headed.
What's is your business and who are some of your biggest customers?
Canton Railroad Co. is a switching carrier that provides local service to industries located along our rail lines. We connect with both CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads, which link our customers with the national rail system. For example, we receive rail cars from our connecting carriers, we put the cars in order by customer and deliver them to their facilities. In addition we provide services such as weighing, car ordering, rate procurement, and issue movement instructions to our connecting carriers. Ironically we do not get paid by our customers to move the cars, but by our connecting carriers by way of a "switching fee," which is taken from the overall freight bill the shipper pays. Some of our biggest customers are Sun Products (soap manufacturer), Apex Oil (crude oil), Lehigh Cement, GAF (roofing shingles), Boise Cascade and Weyerhaeuser (lumber). Our goal is to be safe, reliable and competitively priced. … We also control the rail access to the Seagirt Marine Terminal and allow CSX use of those tracks to operate their intermodal [container] trains to and from the facility, from which we receive a "trackage rights" fee per revenue container.