Branch line

Because industrial spurs generally have less capacity and traffic than a mainline, they tend to have lower maintenance and signaling (train control) standards.

Industries of the era were commonly built along railroad lines specifically to allow for easy access to shipping.

As automobile and roadway technology improved throughout the early and mid-20th century, most low volume industry spurs were abandoned in favor of the greater flexibility and economic savings of trucking.

Today, railroads remain the most economical way to ship large quantities of material, a fact that is reflected in industrial spurs.

Most modern day spurs serve very large industries that require hundreds, if not thousands, of carloads a year.

They were typically built to lower standards, using lighter rail and shallow roadbeds when compared to main lines.

This was historically driven by factors such as the Crow Rate, which regulated the price railways could charge for shipping grain.

[3] The Western Grain Transportation Act of 1983 addressed this case specifically, but was repealed in 1994 in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement and budget-balancing initiatives in favour of a one-time payout by the federal government directly to farmers, to arrange transport of grain themselves.

[5][6] In the United States, abandonment of unproductive branch lines was a byproduct of deregulation of the rail industry through the Staggers Act.

Discontinued services include the Sha Tau Kok Railway and the Wo Hop Shek Branch.

The East West Line of the MRT system in Singapore has a two-station branch to Changi Airport.

New Zealand once had a very extensive network of branch lines, especially in the South Island regions of Canterbury, Otago, and Southland.

Those that remain serve ports or industries far from main lines such as coal mines, logging operations, large dairying factories, and steelworks.