Columbus
& Greenville

onnecting Columbus in the east with Greenville in the west with passenger and freight service both, the newly-formed Columbus & Greenville — dubbed the "Delta Route" for the region of the state it served — survived World World II on aging second-hand steam power. The road entered the diesel era with a historic 1945 order for five Baldwin Locomotive Works road switchers. These six-axle diesel-electrics would be Baldwin's first domestic diesel-electric order, and the first of its road units to be put into commerical service anywhere in the world. With an expanding and eclectic mix of motive power, operating over an ever-deteriorating right-of-way, the scrappy Delta Route plowed on in indepedent existence until 1972. In that fateful years, the beleaguered shortline was purchased by the newly-formed Illinois Central Gulf system.

The ICG takeover of the Delta Route brought little benefit to the property, and much of its better equipment left the shortline for service elsewhere on the national ICG system. Barely two years later, conditions on the former C&G had deteriorated to such a degree that local business interests came togehter — for the second time in the road's history — to purchase the line from a mainline carrier, this time not from the Southern but from the Illinois Central Gulf. The Class 1 agreed to sell, and in 1975 the Delta Route began operating again as a local concern, now known as CAGY ... and "The Railroad that Cares." Two batches of subsequent locomotive purchases — Geeps and CF7s — together with federal loans for much-needed track work helped the new CAGY successfully operate through the late 1970s and into the 1980s and its improved climate for the shortline business. At its peak length, the Delta Route controlled 230 miles of Mississippi trackage: 175 miles of mainline between its namesake communities; a 14-mile branch connecting Metcalf; and a 50-mile branch connecting Cleveland with Hollandale, remnants of a Yazoo & Mississippi Valley line. A holding company was also formed — CAGY Industries — to operate three smaller shortlines in the region: the Luxapalila Valley in western Alabama; the Redmont Railway in northern Mississippi; and the Chattooga & Chickamauga Railway in northwest Georgia.

After the year 2000, decreased freight traffic, deteriorating roadway, and a bridge collapse on the eastern end of the line prompted the CAGY to cease through-freight operations between West Point and Greenwood. Interchange and industrial switching continue in the greater Columbus area in the east, and new customers have been developed in the west between Greenwood and Greenville. In 2008, control of the remaining bifurcated Delta Route was purchased by the Genessee & Wyoming shortline holding company, which has incorporated the two segments of the railroad into its Southern Region.

Currently, the G&W-owned Columbus & Greenville is 150 miles long, hauling commodities including agricultural products, chemicals and plastics, metals, waste. Railcar storage is also provided. Interchanges are maintained with the Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern, and Burlington-Northern Santa Fe in the Columbus area, and with the Canadian National at Greenwood for the western end of the operation. As of 2020, after decades offline, the Great River Railroad in Rosedale is making plans to reactivate its short line, which would once again interchange with the western end of the CAGY at Metcalf. CAGY shops are maintained in around the historic roundhouse in Columbus.