Oneida and Western Railroad (Shamrock Coal Company)

Last revised: October 14, 2026

The mint-green coal trains of 1979–1987 belonged to the Shamrock Coal Company of Knoxville. Shamrock owned the locomotives and the cars. The Louisville & Nashville ran the trains, and the Seaboard System and then CSX Transportation kept them going. The equipment carried the reporting mark OWTX and the name Oneida & Western Transportation, after a Tennessee short line that Shamrock’s president, B. Ray Thompson, had watched as a boy. That railroad has its own page, the Oneida & Western of 1913–1954.

Eight new EMD SD40-2s, numbered 9950–9957, and two 72-car sets of 100-ton rotary-dump gondolas moved Shamrock coal from southeastern Kentucky to South Carolina Electric & Gas. One route measured 508 miles. The other measured 581 miles. The dedicated trains ended in 1987.

Mint-green Shamrock Coal SD40-2s 9951 and 9956 with coal cars at Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1980s

Shamrock Coal SD40-2s 9951 and 9956 at Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1980s. Warren Calloway photograph. A lighter mint green on the body, and a darker green on the nose, the frame, and the lettering. Electro-Motive, September 1979, order 786246. 9951 is serial 786246-2. 9956 is serial 786246-7.

On this page: The green trains · At a glance · The two routes · Eight SD40-2s · Gondolas and cabooses · 1987 · The Tennessee railroad

The green trains

Shamrock’s mines sat on the Louisville & Nashville in southeastern Kentucky. Through the 1970s the L&N’s coal business grew faster than the railroad’s supply of locomotives and cars, and in 1979 the company won a 22 percent rate increase from the Interstate Commerce Commission. Shippers who furnished their own cars could take a lower rate. Thompson offered something more than cars. Shamrock would put up two dedicated trainsets, gondolas and locomotives together, and keep South Carolina Electric & Gas supplied. The L&N agreed.

Thompson put the old Tennessee name on the new equipment. Oneida & Western Transportation, reporting mark OWTX, was the lettering on the locomotives, the gondolas, and the cabooses, and the trains ran on the Louisville & Nashville and the other railroads mapped below. He had watched the short line out of Oneida as a child, and he used its initials. The paint was a two-tone mint green, a lighter green on the body and a darker green for the lettering and the trim. Electro-Motive built the eight SD40-2s in September 1979 to Louisville & Nashville specifications, so the L&N could run them in its own crews and over its own railroad. The road numbers were 9950–9957.

At a glance

Item	Detail
Owner	Shamrock Coal Company, Knoxville, Tennessee. B. Ray Thompson, president
Reporting mark	OWTX, Oneida & Western Transportation
What it owned	Eight SD40-2s, two 72-car gondola sets, and two cabooses. The trains ran on other railroads’ track
Locomotives	EMD SD40-2s 9950–9957, order 786246, September 1979
Cars	Two sets of 72 rotary-dump gondolas, 100-ton, built by Youngstown Steel
Cabooses	Two, International Car of Kenton, Ohio, built to the Union Pacific CA-11 type
Eastern route	508 miles, by the former Clinchfield and Seaboard Coast Line, with Norfolk & Western trackage rights
Western route	581 miles, L&N and former Seaboard Air Line, Corbin to Atlanta and on to the plants
Plants	South Carolina Electric & Gas at Columbia, and the Wateree plant east of the capital
Operator	Louisville & Nashville, then the Seaboard System after December 29, 1982, then CSX Transportation
Service	Late 1979 through 1987
Where the engines went	BC Rail 743–750
The 1913 railroad	Oneida & Western Railroad, Oneida to Jamestown, Tennessee. Last revenue train March 4, 1954

The two routes

Map of Shamrock Coal's eastern and western coal routes from Kentucky to South Carolina, with the old Oneida and Western shown as a dotted line

Shamrock’s two coal routes, and the Tennessee short line. Author’s work. Redbird and Clover are the Kentucky mines. The eastern line passes St. Paul, Erwin, Bostic, and Spartanburg. The western line passes Knoxville, Etowah, and Atlanta. Both reach the South Carolina plants. The dotted line from Oneida to Jamestown is the railroad of 1913–1954.

The coal came off the Redbird and Clover mines in the Kentucky field around Corbin. From there Shamrock had two ways south.

The eastern route ran 508 miles. It used the former Clinchfield and the former Seaboard Coast Line, with trackage rights over the Norfolk & Western. On the map the line passes St. Paul, Hagans, and Erwin, then Bostic and Spartanburg, and comes into South Carolina at Clinton and Columbia. The Wateree plant of South Carolina Electric & Gas sits east of Columbia. The McMeekin plant is the other SCE&G destination on the same end of the railroad.

The western route was longer, 581 miles. It used the L&N and the former Seaboard Air Line from Corbin through Jellico, Knoxville, and Etowah, then Cartersville into Atlanta, and east by way of Athens to Clinton and the plants. The trains went to work in late 1979. Shamrock later asked that they use the western route only. Daily service held through the 1980s. In the last years the trains were not always a dedicated set.

Eight SD40-2s

All eight locomotives are EMD SD40-2s from a single order, 786246, built in September 1979 and delivered as Oneida & Western Transportation 9950–9957. When the trains ended, BC Rail took the eight in the same order, as 743–750.

No.	Model	Serial	Order	Built	Disposition
9950	SD40-2	786246-1	786246	September 1979	BC Rail 743
9951	SD40-2	786246-2	786246	September 1979	BC Rail 744
9952	SD40-2	786246-3	786246	September 1979	BC Rail 745
9953	SD40-2	786246-4	786246	September 1979	BC Rail 746
9954	SD40-2	786246-5	786246	September 1979	BC Rail 747
9955	SD40-2	786246-6	786246	September 1979	BC Rail 748
9956	SD40-2	786246-7	786246	September 1979	BC Rail 749
9957	SD40-2	786246-8	786246	September 1979	BC Rail 750

After BC Rail the eight went to other owners, and those later numbers are a separate story from the Shamrock trains. The Charleston photograph shows the scheme as it ran: white number boards, a dark green nose and frame, and the O&W initials on the long hood.

Gondolas and cabooses

The coal rode in 100-ton rotary-dump gondolas from Youngstown Steel, two sets of 72 cars each. Two cabooses came with them, built by International Car of Kenton, Ohio, to the Union Pacific’s CA-11 type. Thompson still owns one. The other has been restored in the mint green and is at the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

1987

The Louisville & Nashville merged into the Seaboard System on December 29, 1982. The green trains kept their own numbers and kept running. In 1987 two changes arrived together. CSX Transportation was the carrier, and Sun Coal bought Shamrock. Sun was moving more tonnage than the two trainsets had been built to handle. Under the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 it could make a new contract with CSX, and it did. The dedicated Oneida & Western trains came off. BC Rail bought the SD40-2s. Pacific Rail Leasing bought the gondolas.

The Tennessee railroad

The name Thompson borrowed belonged to a common carrier. The Oneida & Western Railroad was chartered in 1912 and 1913, built from the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific at Oneida to Jamestown, and ran its last revenue train on March 4, 1954. Its 2-8-0 No. 29, and the system map in the January 1930 Official Guide, are on that page. The 1979 locomotives worked the Kentucky-to-South Carolina coal routes.

Sources

Ron Flanary, “Why the ‘green train’ ran…and why it doesn’t any longer,” Trains, April 2007. The routes, the 508 and 581 miles, the 1979 rate case, the two 72-car sets, the cabooses, the 1987 ending, and Thompson’s choice of the name.
Electro-Motive order 786246, September 1979, serials 786246-1 through 786246-8, built as Oneida & Western Transportation 9950–9957 and later BC Rail 743–750. TrainWeb EMD order list, and Railroad Picture Archives order 786246.
Warren Calloway photograph of 9951 and 9956 at Charleston, and the author’s route map, both already on this page.

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