In 1969 Southern Pacific saw the success of the CSRX freight car leasing service. With Copper State Railway’s headquarter office in Phoenix, Southern Pacific used the opportunity to spin off the Phoenix lines and everything off the Sunset Route to focus operations on through freight. The impending purge of passenger operations from the major railroads in favor of Amtrak meant Southern Pacific would no longer need to maintain a mainline that saw little in the way of customers. The agreement would create a subsidiary railroad, the Copper State Railway (CSR), to move freight into and around Phoenix.

With the impending Southern Pacific-Rio Grande acquisition by the Union Pacific, SP senior leadership and Phil Anschutz agreed with CSR COO Brian Banna to separate the railroad and exclude it from the UP’s acquisition of the Southern Pacific-Rio Grande. On September 1, 1996 the Copper State Railway officially became its own entity with no parent company. This was at a time when the class one railroads showed more interest in just moving freight across the country and did not want to bother with the local switching duties. The FCC would not allow BNSF to take over the operations. That would be considered a monopoly in the Phoenix area.

At the same time, BHP acquired the Superior, AZ copper mine and shut it down permanently. Resolution Copper Mining Purchased the Superior mine from BHP in late 1997. CSR took a gamble that the mine would reopen due to the discovery of an extraordinary large deposit of copper roughly four miles east of the Superior mine and purchased the Magma Arizona Railroad running out to Superior, AZ.

It turned out that the Copper State Railway wasn’t the only beneficiary of Anschutz’s generosity to separate subsidiaries. In 2001, Lost Dutchman Railroad (LD) Chairman David Doiron approached CSR management about buying out his railroad. With Doiron ready to retire an acquisition would allow CSR to gain access to Northern Arizona. The existing railroad provided a fast route from Phoenix to Chicago interchanging with BNSF at the LD location of Two Guns (BNSF location of Canyon Diablo). The climb up the Mogollon Rim also provided opportunities to expand the already diverse traffic base of CSR to include wood and paper products. A key component of the acquisition would also include the Uvalde Rail Plant. The facility brings in raw materials and ships out continuous welded rail to railroads all over the country. On June 1, 2001 Doiron signed the agreement to sell the Lost Dutchman Railroad and its equipment to Copper State Railway more than doubling the route miles. On January 1, 2010 Brian Banna retired from his position as Chairman and CEO and Matt Martin was appointed to take over leadership of the Copper State Railway

The CSR handles just about every kind of freight traffic that is common to the US today. We have three branches and four interchange points. Branch line #1 is the Mesa/Chandler branch. This branch comes off the mainline in Mesa, AZ and heads south through eastern Chandler, AZ. Branch #2 is the Tempe/Chandler branch. The line comes off the mainline in downtown Tempe, AZ and heads south through west Chandler, AZ. Branch #3 is the old Magma Arizona Railroad line. It comes off the main line at the same point as the CSR interchanges with the Copper Basin Railway just north of Coolidge, AZ. We have four yards. The main yard is in downtown Phoenix and handles the bulk of all the traffic and is the main classification yard for any interchange with the BNSF and Union Pacific. This yard also has on its property an auto rack facility. The BNSF interchange is a short distance away in downtown Phoenix. We have a smaller yard about a mile west of the main yard. Eloy has a small interchange yard for traffic going to and coming from the Union Pacific. We interchange with one other railroad. As mentioned earlier, north of Coolidge is the Copper Basin Railway.

CSR owns the trackage that runs west to Wellton, AZ and sees daily use with manifest service, unit export copper concentrate traffic, and unit trains going to Wellton. CSR only serves the Palo Verde Nuclear Power plant on a special move/as needed basis. Ever since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the security for the plant has been changed and concrete barriers have been built in front of the tracks at the property boundary. McElhaney Cattle Company Railroad retains trackage rights on CSR to allow them to accept trains directly from the UP that connects its west end in Wellton.