Napoleon, Defiance and Western: The Definitive Thread

[TC Man]

The first person who takes some photos of the ND&W around Liberty Center (track, cars, trains, whatever) herby will be deemed the coolest person on this board for one week.

[Notch 8]

That's my thought as well. If I recall correctly that was used firebrick from the steel mill

Why not load/unload in Defiance or Napoleon ? Now they can't store cars on the east end... I thought it was new fire brick being offloaded ?

[AARR]

My guess is a contractor is handling the firebrick and chooses to offload in Liberty City and truck from there.

Funny how some of these things work if it's really old firebrick out of the Delta. You would think they would just load the cars on the mill property and either move by NS or the I&O to CSX.

[jimnorthwood]

We checked out the ND&W last Friday. On our way to Napoleon we briefly debated exiting US 24 at 109 to go to LC, but we chose not to on account "there won't be anything to see in LC, anyway." Guess we were wrong. There was nothing going on in Napoleon, either so we headed for Defiance. There we saw one of the Geeps just coming back from having worked the CSX interchange. The Gettysburg loco was in the yard, too. No sign of the switcher. The crew parked the aforementioned Geep in the yard, left it idling, and went into the depot, probably to eat lunch. We stuck around for a bit to see if anything else was going to happen, but we wanted to include Marion on this trip so we left without seeing any additional ND&W activity. We wondered why there were relatively few locomotives in Defiance, and no train in Napoleon. Now we know there was one locomotive and the cars in LC, and probably one or two locomotives somewhere on the western end of the line, too.

[JoJames]

Gerald Grain's website boasts about its proximity of being located along a short line railroad and the line's connection to CSX at their Liberty Center location. This portion of their website was just updated a month ago. They must not be officially ruling out the possibility of rail options at Liberty Center altogether yet.

http://www.geraldgrain.com/index.cfm?show=10&mid=3

That website was updated because of the purchase of another facility between Wauseon and Napoleon. At this time they will not be loading on CSX either because of the rate increase.

[iKJames]

No sign of the switcher.

The switcher left the property back in August, word at the time was that it was heading for scrap but heard nothing new since then.

[jimnorthwood]

Thanks for the info regarding the disposition of the switcher, iKJames. Our previous visit to the ND&W took place in May, and the switcher was parked in Defiance that day. We never saw it run during any of our visits, but there is footage out there of it in operation. The Gettysburg painted/lettered unit that was sitting in Defiance looked well worn, too judging by the oil streaks running down the side of the hood and also present on the spark arrestors.

[matt76]

I went to Liberty Center yesterday in hopes of catching the gondolas but they were gone. I did get a couple pics. It looks like they've cleaned up the switch area and replaced a few ties but not much else. I just hope they continue to use this!

[bluestreak81]

Thank you for posting photos. Is there a gap in the rail in the first photo at the crossing? Or is that asphalt on the rail?

[MQT1223]

Looks like the track ends just beyond the crossing.

[matt76]

It looks like a gap to me. I've seen a few on this line.

[h2466]

I went to Liberty Center yesterday in hopes of catching the gondolas but they were gone. I did get a couple pics. It looks like they've cleaned up the switch area and replaced a few ties but not much else. I just hope they continue to use this!

Nice pics Matt. Do you have any pics of the replaced ties? From the looks of the track in these pics there hasn't been any improvements or any thing run over then in years. The gondolas apparently weren't parked around this area. Thanks, Ken

[MSchwiebert]

The gons were parked east of where the photographer was standing. Beyond the covered hopper loader that is visible in two of the photos. As for the tie replacement, there were some switch ties that were replaced with "newer" (not brand new) switch ties.

[bluestreak81]

Made my first trip ever to Liberty Center on my way home from seeing family. There was an unloader parked next to the tracks east of the grain elevators on the opposite side of 109 which you can sort of see in the photo behind the old crossing pole on 109, but it's hard to imagine a train being on these tracks at all in their current condition. Especially with the gap in the rail at the first crossing. I took these two photos today. All crossings in Liberty Center now have cross bucks except for the 109 crossing. As you can see in the photo the crossing lights have been removed, but the poles are still in place. In fact, the tear drop warning bell is still on top of one of the old crossing signal poles. As already mentioned in a previous post, the 109 crossing is not at all paved over.

[jrgerber]

Well if the NW5 is heading for the scrap heap and the GP-7 is getting there, I guess there are still 2 GP-16s and a GP-20 on the property. As far as I can recall the last locomotives that Pioneer acquired were the GP-20s, wonder if they will be in the market to purchase some more. I guess there about 49 former UP MP15 switchers up for auction here at some point.

[Notch 8]

Made my first trip ever to Liberty Center on my way home from seeing family. There was an unloader parked next to the tracks east of the grain elevators on the opposite side of 109 which you can sort of see in the photo behind the old crossing pole on 109, but it's hard to imagine a train being on these tracks at all in their current condition. Especially with the gap in the rail at the first crossing. I took these two photos today. All crossings in Liberty Center now have cross bucks except for the 109 crossing. As you can see in the photo the crossing lights have been removed, but the poles are still in place. In fact, the tear drop warning bell is still on top of one of the old crossing signal poles. As already mentioned in a previous post, the 109 crossing is not at all paved over.

Apparently your not familiar with the MAW/ND&W as there are/were many gaps in this track, a real nice 1 under the loader at LC. I don't quite understand why there doing Transload at LC as this could be done in Napoleon or Defiance. I likes seeing the cars east of US24 being stored and it seems like they could make more money using it for storage.

[jldominique]

I was heading to Toledo on Sat, I didn't see any tank cars east of the 24 crossing, but I saw 4-5 hoppers and a couple of box cars as well.

[ABB1501]

Not sure if this is relevant, but I found this on the PUCO website. It has pictures of covered hoppers at the elevator.
http://gradecrossings.puco.ohio.gov/ite ... ALL&f9=MSO

[ABB1501]

The link is for Maple St.

[MSchwiebert]

Those photos are 5+ years old.

Not sure if this is relevant, but I found this on the PUCO website. It has pictures of covered hoppers at the elevator.
http://gradecrossings.puco.ohio.gov/ite ... ALL&f9=MSO