Progressive Rail, Inc.
Progressive Rail Inc. is a shortline railroad and owner of several other shortlines. PGR is directly operating several separate branches in Minnesota including the Airlake Terminal Railway. Progressive Rail also acquired the Wisconsin Northern Division in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin and operates as a separately-named division. They also own the Chicago Junction Railroad, Clackamas Valley Railway, the Iowa Traction Railway and Iowa Southern Railway in Iowa, the Piedmont & Northern Railroad, the Crab Orchard and Egyptian Railroad in Illinois, the St. Paul & Pacific Northwest Railroad, and the Wisconsin Northern Railroad. Progressive Rail is also known as the Cannon  Valley Railroad . The PGR branches are listed as follows: History. Headquartered in Lakeville, Minnesota (a southern suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul), Progressive Rail, Inc. was established in 1996 to initially serve the Airlake Industrial Park. In 2001, they leased the former Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern Railway "High Line" in Bloomington and Richfield and started restoring trackage. The company's philosophy has been to provide service that a large railway chooses not to provide. They have also focused on economic development, including finding new customers, and working on regaining former rail customers along their lines. This strategy has paid off in  an increase in traffic, from 600 carloads in their first year of operation to more than 5000 carloads in 2003. Major commodities include resins, chemicals, fuels, lumber, gypsum board, cement, fly-ash, metals, paper, machinery, food and kindred products, scrap material, and consumer products. Progressive Rail, Inc. also operates wholly owned subsidiary Progressive Rail Specialized Logistics, which provides rail logistics services for machinery and over-dimensional freight shippers.