Ohio: State of Big Railroading

foreign fans one evening recently my son Rob called me up and said hey Dad what are you doing for your birthday and I said no big plans and he said well how about let's go to Fostoria Ohio and see some trains and I said okay I'm in but where'd you get that idea turns out that Rob had conspired with my wife Liz and they had consulted a really close rail fan friend of mine Paul Newson they asked him where would dad like to go on a train watching trip and Paul apparently immediately answered Fostoria Ohio so that's where we went uh it I had about a month to do some research to plan and figure out you know how we were going to do it and where we were going to go and what we were going to see I really didn't know anything about Ohio nothing I really didn't even know where the cities were but this trip opened up a whole new world of train watching for me and I'd like to share it with you so let's go we flew non-stop from Tampa to Columbus Ohio though 90 minutes away from our objective in Fostoria this gave us the earliest arrival and the most hours by the tracks that day we Breeze through the really nice Columbus airport retrieving our checked bags and on to the rental desk where everything stopped there were nine of us in line for cars and one guy working the window even though this cost us about 30 minutes we were still doing really good on time and the first stop on the schedule was breakfast they don't feed you on the airlines anymore and after a 4 a.m wake up we were kind of hungry a quick Google search found us a place with five star reviews in Columbus right next to a Panera Bread stab's Diner great service and really good classic breakfast food I think that stop cracking the eggs at The Griddle you can't go wrong as stov's Diner very friendly folks and very good food 22 bucks out the door for the two of us 30 minutes and we were back on the road looking for the high iron we were headed south in the direction of Findlay when I saw signs for Marysville now I didn't know a thing about Marysville other than a radio commercial I remembered from my youth that always ended Scotch fertilizer Marysville Ohio that was enough to make us take the exit take Exit 7 . down that road We Came Upon a perfectly landscaped corporate headquarters and then the first train of the day a CSX crew working the Scots Rail Yard through the years I have put many bags of Scott's bonus s fertilizer on my Florida lawn I wonder if it came from here I'm only guessing here but I'd imagine those Hoppers are loaded variously with phosphate and potash and maybe some tank cars of nitrogen or somewhere here too today the crew is pulling out an empty and spotting a load while my son Rob and I were there shooting this action a guy pulled up in his semi truck in the parking lot right there and said hey Danny I walked over and said hello right back it was Brian Berry a driver for Scots and also a friend of the distant signal Channel we got a picture together after that Rob and I said farewell to Marysville and got back on the road I was instantly struck by the number of silos at farms everywhere you go in this part of Ohio clearly there's lots of grain produced here we continued northward on Ohio State Highway 4 passed lots of houses farms and Fields and came into another town I've heard about since becoming a rail fan Marion this is where three railroads cross at grade CSX on the xcno and big four Erie and the Norfolk Southern on the ex Pennsylvania nnw Marion was everything I'd read about and more it was only five minutes until something came into town on the busy Norfolk Southern Line it was NS 77903 Hico North Carolina to Shire Oaks Pennsylvania 210 coal empties 11 148 feet the preserved AC switch Tower makes a great shooting platform for both the NS and the CSX big4 action foreign here the Sandusky district is reportedly the busiest of the three in Marion these diamonds are some of the busiest in the eastern U.S and Marion has eight of them that we can see here anyway they're probably more somewhere 779 is a great example of distributed power in use a long and relatively light train with a single locomotive in the lead then three units in the middle one on the bottom Marion is not only great for train action the old Union passenger station has been preserved as a museum at one time it served passenger trains on four railroads in about five more minutes another train came through I didn't get his ID but it looked like a CSX local from the CNO line foreign there's another thing you should know about Marion Ohio it's home to the annual summer rail show I've never been but from everything I've heard it's a collection of the best railroad photography and multimedia shows you will ever see happens every summer right here in Marion we met another friend of the channel in Marion Reverend J groat just up here from his home in Columbus for the day Ohio was shaping up to be one of the friendliest places I'd ever visited after that we broke off and Marion and continued on our way to Findlay Ohio which would be our base camp for the weekend but only a mile down the road we stopped again Robert had never seen a wind turbine there were three of them here at Marion in half an hour we detoured at harpster on the CSX Columbus sub it was a Smithfield company Granary and they had an old Alco S4 Switcher it was running but we didn't see anyone around working so after a few minutes we pushed on after the break we'll check out another of Ohio's famous hot spots Friday morning we're up very early and headed northward out of Findlay first stop is csx's Big Intermodal yard in North Baltimore Ohio this was expanded in 2011 as part of the national Gateway program of bigger Intermodal yards raising Bridges and lowering tunnels all to clear double stacked container trains it was the centerpiece of the CSX Hub and spoke philosophy well everything was humming along great until 2017. when Hunter Harrison was put in charge of CSX he didn't think much of the Hub and spoke way of doing things that of switching cars to different trains mid-trip preferring instead giant trains going intact from origin to destination stopping only to change Crews and fuel up or swap whole blocks of cars so North Baltimore hasn't fully realized the use that was planned for it but at four miles long and with seven Gantry cranes it's still a very busy terminal and an important part of CSS Texas Network through the Midwest train i-141 is going through its final procedures before departure this double stacked Behemoth originates here at North Baltimore and is Bound for Fairburn yard near Atlanta Georgia he'll stop along the way to work Queensgate yard in Cincinnati and Osborne yard in Louisville we got around him down to hoytville a double crossover to the West End of North Baltimore yard the morning was glooming on a lot of low cloud cover but on a trip like this you take what you can get and shoot them all foreign [Applause] on that 525 engine was Factory original sounds like the shop may have borrowed that from a foreign engine like maybe up and we'd find out about it later it's also possible one of the Chimes just wasn't blowing and giving it that soprano voice i-141 was so long and took so long to get out of the yard that he wasn't hard to Chase and get ahead of seven miles we were pulling into another legendary name and rail Fanning destler I took a liking to destler immediately as it seemed like a place that had not yet been homogenized into looking like every place else the downtown isn't an arts district there are still real businesses there post office hardware store and a barber shop and this very cool mural we got to the tracks when a double stack was coming off the Toledo sub and onto the Willard sub to North Baltimore the Willard sub is part of csx's super busy Cleveland to Chicago b o main I was liking Deshler even more when I spotted a working color position light signal there are a bunch of them still in service around the diamonds here the dispatcher is routing this train around the connection through a crossover and onto the Willard sub number one main this is because our i-141 train is sitting back there waiting on the number two just beyond that signal he's going to take this same connection track when this train clears when the eastbound cleared the plant here i-141 gets a signal to come on in [Applause] he's taking that same connection track onto the north-south Toledo sub towards Cincinnati [Music] foreign I found it remarkable that in 2022 color position lights are still burning on the CSX I thought PTC had obsolesced them all but not at Deshler Ohio [Music] [Applause] deshler's nickname is Crossroads of the bno and it certainly is that up above you can see the layout here to the right is the double track Willard sub to the left the b o double track continues Westward as the Garrett sub to Chicago up and down is the Toledo sub running from Toledo South to Cincinnati in the upper left that white sandy clearing is where the old Deshler passenger station stood CSX had demolished it just recently before a trip up here foreign creeps around deshler's Southeast y all three connection tracks here are 10 miles an hour gives you a chance to get a real good look at trains going through to the lower left is the Deshler Crossroads Park an excellent rail fan viewing spot and though it's not elevated there are also no obstructions for shooting trains going in any direction here Crossroads park has a pavilion with benches and tables a really good map of the track layout here a guide for reading CSX signals and most importantly a scanner radio that's apparently on all the time 141 [Music] the traffic in dashler is pretty constant we saw four trains in the hour we were here I was so impressed with Deshler I hope to make a trip back up here sometime soon maybe in the late spring or early summer when the weather's a little warmer after destler we headed north to Toledo on Lake Erie we stopped for lunch at a downtown Town restaurant called Ye Old Dirty Bird right across the street from Fifth Third Field Rob and I both got Burgers they were delicious and very reasonably priced now we went to Toledo actually to see Lake Erie my son Rob is in the maritime business and to say he's always loved boats is a real understatement he's been a fan of boats and the water ever since he was a very little boy so after lunch we went to the national museum of the Great Lakes another place we found just by accident on Google Maps they've got giant rooms there full of really well done displays laying out the history of the Great Lakes Maritime industry that is still very much in service today they also have a complete intact and beautifully restored Great Lakes bulk freighter out on the riverfront the 617-foot colonel James M Schoonmaker now if you ever get to Toledo carve out a couple of hours for yourself to see this Museum now we've all heard about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald at least those of us over 50 have but this Museum tells so much more of the story of this crucial American shipping service the national museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo I cannot recommend it enough now after the break we're going to head to the Target of this whole trip Fostoria Northwest Ohio is a land of sparse population but big agriculture the railroad spotted that factor in the early 1800s and moved in quickly here in Fostoria railroad tracks are everywhere the hottest of the hot spots is right near the middle of town the Fostoria iron Triangle rail Park here is where CSX comes through on the xbno and the xcno and Norfolk Southern comes through on the X Nickel Plate this is big busy railroading thank you it took only minutes at Fostoria until the first train showed up b-52207 Detroit Michigan to Middletown Ohio coming off the CNO Pemberville sub and swinging on to the b o Willard side the concept is almost all steel ingots these are Big slabs of new steel stacked onto specially made flat cars very heavy apparently this train is usually steel carriers foreign s are taking disconnection the park offers a panoramic view of the action the old b o bay window Caboose is a great place to light down and watch it all on the other side of that Caboose is a big raised platform with an access ramp for wheelchairs facing the Norfolk Southern Nickel Plate tracks is the main Pavilion it's covered and raised for an elevated view on the rails it also has very nice restrooms foreign I went outside the park to scout other angles and of course I was way out on the CNO side when not one but two Norfolk Southern trains came through [Applause] we'll see a couple of instances today of two trains running side by side crossing the diamonds at once foreign I was actually over here to get a close-up look at these being a Florida native I haven't seen many of these over my rail Fanning years switch heaters in really icy weather these propane fired appliances can light up and melt ice away from Frozen switch assemblies there are a bunch of these at Fostoria and in fact all over Ohio and most of them appear to be propane fueled back inside the park now and looking Eastward on the NS the CNO tracks Crossing at the diamonds and ns's Blair yard just beyond the route goes from there to Bellevue and Cleveland zero nine Twenty Eight a CSX auto rack train coming off the b o and on to the CNO toward Chicago it was M 207 ihb Gibson yard Indiana to Walbridge Ohio we drove outside the park again but just barely this is the Columbus Avenue Crossing in the mornings you kind of have to move over here to get in good light The Crossing is under repair right now when they get it restored you'll be able to walk right outside the park and across the tracks M200 is listed as an auto rack train but CSX has always used these jobs to move lots of manifest Freight with the racks 200 is no different two flat cars of Steel the IP dispatcher in Jacksonville is talking to this High who is trying to get track time in the middle of this blizzard of train traffic [Applause] alter something meanwhile M 207 continues at 10 miles per hour around the connection track called Northwest transfer it takes almost seven minutes but we finally get to the racks of this rack train at 1005 over on the b o eastbound we've got two Reds over a green on the left and a green over two Reds on the right now the left signal governs the turnout switch just ahead that goes onto the Northwest transfer remember that's a connection track with a 10 mile an hour speed limit the signal indicates a slow clear now on the right the green over two Reds is a clear indication is proceed also known as a high green same for that green signal just behind it in just a few minutes up comes our first train on track one tiptoeing into the junction here he knows he's got to hit that turnout switch ahead at 10 miles an hour remember he's the one getting that slow clear signal foreign Intermodal out of the big yard at North Baltimore and Bound for Detroit Michigan the BNSF units are run through Power not sure if this is normal for this train or not in about three minutes another eastbound appears this time on track two it's i-16608 Schiller Park Illinois at Chicago to Seneca yard New York and buffalo [Music] foreign this is an interesting job because it's actually Canadian Pacific train 132 operating under trackage rides across the CSX that's why it's all CP power including a mid-train DP engine so both trains cleared I heard on the radio what sounded like two defect detectors broadcasting at the same time on one radio Milo oh [Applause] never heard that one before and while this strangeness was happening the westbound track 2 signal came up with a yellow over flashing green approach limited that means proceed approaching the next signal not exceeding limited speed something was on the way in any case two minutes later the train showed up over the hill 10 29 and train g10805 westbound grain empties out of Selkirk New York and destined for Cicero Illinois Chicago [Applause] [Music] thank you I didn't get the length of g108 but he was gargantuan had two DP engines mid-train and I think both were pulling [Laughter] 11 11 A.M there was commotion on the Norfolk Southern side so we moved back inside the park to the Pavilion on the X Nickel Plate and in nache the sd40-2 engines of NS train l708 pull Westward out of Blair yard Fostoria toward Edgerton at the Indiana State Line we'll only go out to Leipzig Ohio L70 is a local turn that apparently takes empty steel coil cars back toward the mill just then an eastbound comes around the curve right in front of the Pavilion ns-28n08 Intermodal traffic Chicago Illinois to Charlotte North Carolina foreign 11 17 a.m on the CSX Northeast transfer coming off the b o and onto the CNO it's X 21507 Auto racks out of Newcastle Pennsylvania and Bound for Wayne Michigan a neighborhood of Detroit at nearly the same moment Here Comes eastbound m51507 merchandise Freight out of Cincinnati and also headed for Detroit here's where the Drone is a Priceless videography tool from the ground you could only see one or the other of these trains from the air you can catch the whole scene of this dramatic convergence foreign [Music] Triangle Park is truly among the top train watching places in the U.S its facilities wide open landscape and sheer number of trains make it a must for any rail fans Hot Spot list I'd heard some chatter from an NS job trying to get out of the yard so we swung down two blocks Northeast to a spot called Town Street the neck of ns's Blair yard the job was NS train 40n06 Dyer Ohio to Norfolk Virginia loaded grain but evidently the crew was going out somewhere to pick up their train so this is all we got a 40 in foreign we broke off at Fostoria and headed toward Bellevue Ohio I'd heard about the big Norfolk Southern Wick Mormon yard there but as we rolled into Bellevue I immediately got sidetracked Bellevue was a railroad town on the nickel plate roughly midway between Cleveland and Toledo and right in the little downtown is an amazing collection of preserved Nickel Plate Norfolk and Western and Wabash equipment the Mad River and Nickel Plate museum is a must-see on any Ohio rail fan trip and it seems like everywhere I go I always run into someone with ties to Florida Bellevue Ohio no different at the Mr and nkp you'll find several first and second generation diesels steam engines including the famous Nickel Plate Berkshire number 757 lots of Rolling Stock roadway maintenance pieces include a giant snow plow and a steam Derrick the indoor displays are remarkably well done rail cars with massive collections of Dining Car China an operator's desk preserved just like it was still in use today artifacts of all kinds from all aspects and all flags of railroading the way it was in the days when railroads were the absolute dominant and often only form of transportation and my personal favorite a completely preserved Railway post office car and a Troop Train sleeping car not luxurious but it got the job done no video can do it justice so put it on your list the Mad River and Nickel Plate railroad museum in Bellevue Ohio for almost the whole time we were at the Museum we were hearing a train horn nearby so finally we broke off and went to investigate in a little holdout yard on the edge of town apparently called York Street we spotted NS train 88507 coal empties out of Osborne Indiana and Bound for Andover Virginia and they're in a dead end customer track right next to the hopper train was something you don't see every day a Penn Central EMD e-unit it's reportedly not part of the Mad River Museum but privately owned and there it sits at 1751 a new crew is aboard the 885 train and they're departing to the east with two big GES pulling and lots of NS company-owned Hoppers following [Applause] [Music] foreign this is the NS Toledo District of the lake division just outside Bellevue terminal it's all signal territory here and by the time the hopper train was gone so was our daylight and so we never got to see WIC Mormon yard maybe next time now this wasn't a comprehensive look at all Ohio railroading this was just a look at the places that we visited and my maps were a little incomplete so I hope you'll excuse that also in the photographs the Band-Aid on my nose I had just had some surgery done on my nose very small piece of surgery so that was still healing at that time no one hit me at least not yet anyway I this whole trip turned me into a real Ohio rail fan I have to say that I'm already making plans to go back I cannot wait I'd like to thank a couple of folks for helping out with this video first bill Musser at the Mad River and Nickel Plate Museum in Bellevue we got there 15 minutes till closing on Saturday evening and Bill took time out of his busy schedule to keep the place open a little while longer for us and show us around much appreciated Bill Musser also Andrew Stevenson all those trains that I knew the IDS Origins and destinations for that was Andrew's work I gave him the lead locomotive numbers and he got me all the info for each train that's how I did that so a big thanks to Andrew Stevenson also a huge thanks to my son Robert Harmon for organizing this trip booking all of the accommodations and the transportation one of the best birthday presents ever rob so thank you very much now all of you please subscribe to the channel if you haven't done that hit the like button if you haven't done that and if you like this video and please make plans to join us again somewhere out there on the high iron we'll meet up again soon I promise till then this is Danny Harmon out

Channel: Distant Signal

Views: 367,143

Keywords: Danny Harmon, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Columbus, Deshler, Marion, Fostoria, Trains, trainwatching, railfanning, railroad, Toledo, National Museum of the Great Lakes, Stavs Diner, Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald

Id: _1p9E6fVyeU

Length: 34min 26sec (2066 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 05 2022