Its trains operate from Sebring to Fort Pierce via Clewiston around the southern perimeter of Lake Okeechobee, and serves customers at 26 locations.

The South Central Florida Express (SCXF) is at its busiest during the main sugar harvest, which usually runs from October to March each year.

Unlike the SCXF, the USSC is not a common carrier and is not subject to Federal Railroad Administration regulations.

[1][2] Refined by-products such as sugar crystals and molasses are shipped from the refinery by rail to interchanges on each end of the line, where they are sent throughout the United States.

To haul raw sugarcane, SCXF and USSC operate about 800 specifically designed rail cars.

CSX has trackage rights into Desoto City Yard where interchange between the two companies takes place.

The northernmost 42 miles (68 km) of the west side between Sebring and Harrisburg was built in 1916 by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad as part of an effort to extend their Haines City Branch south to Immokalee.

[7] The west side was bought from CSX on June 2, 1990, by the Brandywine Valley Railroad, a Lukens Steel Company subsidiary, and sold to U.S. Sugar on September 17, 1994.

The line then continues to follow the lake a short distance before turning northwest to a point known as Marcy.

The line crosses CSX's Auburndale Subdivision at Marcy before continuing northeast directly to Fort Pierce, where it connects to the FEC.

[9] It reached Belle Glade by 1923, and was extended to the Miami Canal in Lake Harbor in 1929 to connect with the Atlantic Coast Line.

[11] After being reacquired from the Denver and Rio Grande Historical Foundation in Monte Vista, Colorado and a three-year restoration work performed by the FMW Solutions, the No.

148 locomotive now runs on recycled vegetable oil and began its first revenue service, pulling the last cane train of the 2019–2020 harvest season on May 28, 2020.

148 locomotive as part of USSC's heritage tourist passenger train named the Sugar Express.

[14] During the summer months of 2021, U.S. Sugar acquired an ex-Wabash turntable from St. Louis, Missouri, which will eventually be used to turn the No.

148 locomotive participated in taking the American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners' (AAPRCO) special Sugarland Limited train on a multi-day tour around the Lake Okeechobee counties.

[27][28] In 2024, USSC leased a former FEC observation car the Bay Biscayne from the East Tennessee Railcar.