The company began operating in 1984 on a portion of the former Mobile and Ohio Railroad (M&O) main line located entirely within Tennessee, between Jackson and Kenton.
It significantly expanded operations in 2001 through the lease, from the Norfolk Southern Railway, of the ex-M&O south to Corinth and a former main line of the Illinois Central Railroad (IC) north to Fulton, as well as a branch from Jackson to Poplar Corner in southeastern Crockett County (ex-Birmingham and Northwestern Railway, acquired by the Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad in 1924).
[1] Its main line was upgraded as part of the MidAmerica Corridor, an initiative by the Canadian National Railway and Norfolk Southern Railway to improve rail service between Illinois and the Southeast.
[4] Through mergers, all of these lines became part of the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad in 1972.
[7] (The Southern also acquired the ICG's line southeast to Haleyville, Alabama, and trackage rights from Fulton north to Centralia, Illinois, and NS sold the former, where not abandoned, to the Redmont Railway in 1995.)