It involved an alternative to the typical practice of a Class I railroad selling rail lines outright to shortlines in the post-Staggers Act era.
Defining features of the program included leasing lines to shortline operators, as opposed to outright sales, keeping stations available in Norfolk Southern marketing campaigns, and crediting carloads delivered to Norfolk Southern towards the lease and eventual purchase of the line.
In addition to outright abandonment of low density routes, many of the more promising lines were sold to shortline operators.
The second component of the program involved crediting carloads delivered to Norfolk Southern by the shortlines towards the lease.
So long as the shortline could maintain the same annual carloads on the line as Norfolk Southern, they owed no payments towards the lease.