Electric utility companies are problematic.

As many as a two hundred mid- and large-size utilities probably operated street railways at times in their corporate existences. While many utilities had their genesis in street railroading, most removed references to that fact as they switched over to electric buses. Such utilities, then, may have had rail operations for only days or months. Discovering when utilities closed down their rail operations is hard and time-consuming. I only include utilities when they included an indication of railroading in their names. I make this decision for three reasons:

• If street railroading was not important enough to include in corporate names, then I am reluctant to waste precious time including such companies in a railroad database.
• I have never encountered railroad collectors who seriously collect these cross-over items.
• It is too hard to track prices in both the railroading and utility specialties.

Many utilities own several hundred railcars that transport coal from mines in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah, and South Dakota. Those cars are made up into 100- to 120-car "unit trains" that you can see all over the country. The fact that utilities own railcars does not make them "railroad companies."

Please see even more discussion at utilities excluded.