United States Steel Corp., which is struggling amid the steep downturn in demand, is poised to sell the remaining railroads held by its Transtar subsidiary, Trains News Wire has learned.
Multiple rail industry sources say the steelmaker plans to put the 
Transtar lines up for sale soon. A U.S. Steel spokeswoman said the company does not comment on market speculation.
U.S. Steel, which has said it is on track to lose $315 million in the second quarter, this month issued additional stock to raise more than $400 million and has said it is actively marketing various real estate holdings.
Pittsburgh-based Transtar operates:
— The Union Railroad, which operates 65 miles of main track and 200 miles of yard tracks within a 10-mile radius in Allegheny County, Pa., outside Pittsburgh. The railroad serves steel, coke, coal, chemical, aggregate, lumber, and automotive industries.
— The Lake Terminal Railroad, which serves Republic Engineered Products and Lorain Tubular in Lorain, Ohio.
— Lorain Northern, the contract switching carrier at U.S. Steel’s Lorain Tubular steel pipe plant.
— The 15.46-mile Delray Connecting Railroad that serves U.S. Steel’s Great Lakes Works outside of Detroit.
— The 63-mile Gary Railway that serves mills run by U.S. Steel and ArcelorMittal in Indiana, as well as other customers.
— The Fairfield Southern, which is the contract carrier operating within the Fairfield Works in Alabama.
— The Texas & Northern, which operates 7.6 miles of the steel lead and 32 miles of storage tracks that serve the U.S. Steel Tubular Products plant as well as other customers in East Texas.
The sale of the railroads as a package deal is made more difficult by the permanent idling of much of U.S. Steel’s Great Lakes Works outside Detroit, as well as the indefinite idling of various production lines at plants in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and East Texas.
The collapse in steel demand, related to the COVID-19 pandemic, has hurt steelmakers around the globe. U.S. Steel, meanwhile, is in the midst of a plan to boost production at mini-mills, which are more efficient than integrated steel mills.
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, is looking to sell its 260-mile Cartier Railway and other assets in Canada, the Financial Times reported this week.
The Cartier, which is isolated from the rest of the North American rail system, hauls iron ore to Port Cartier on the St. Lawrence River.
U.S. Steel has previously sold railroads including the Bessemer & Lake Erie and Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range, and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern, all of which ended up in the hands of Canadian National.
