New Ohio South Central Railroad

[midland sub]

2014 brings a new operator for the web of former B&O and DT&I lines owned by the city of Jackson. Respondek Railroad Corp will be taking over operations of the lines from US Rail sometime in the next 30 or so days. US Rail and city of Jackson agreed to terminate their agreement April 1st, but it seems it may happen as soon as this Saturday Feb 1st. US Rail has shipped out their collection of older six axle locos purchased from Helm that were rusting away in Hamden for a rebuild project to turn them into a lease fleet. I believe only one SD40-2 ever saw any work and was returned to service for a brief time on the Jackson lines before heading over to US Rail's Kokomo, Indiana operation. The rest were shipped out last fall and I believe all ended up in St Louis for scrapping. US Rail is down to two of the former ARR GP49s and an former Helm GP40-2 in old Guilford paint. One of the GP49s is O.S.S. and being parted out for the active one.

One of Respondek's locomotives showed up Monday at Vauces at the interchange with CSX and the Jackson lines. It's a former ATSF GP7 in a very dark green (Pullman green?) paint job. New operation will be called the Ohio South Central Railroad. There's rumors of a couple new traffic sources on the former B&O south of Jackson that's currently out of service, along with a couple of other interesting developments.

[TrainWatcher]

Good on Mr. Respondek. He has a great operation going on with the Illini Terminal, and has quite the collection of neon green flowing. Here is their website:

http://www.illiniterminalrailroad.com/

Might give me a reason to go check out the southern parts of the DT&I. It'd be wicked to see a "DT&I style" paint job on a non-dynamic GP7 again.

[Pie39]

Any news of sending out 2807? Surely the railroad can't live off of GP7/9s...need a 49 in there!

[AARR]

What is the traffic like on these lines?

[midland sub]

2806 is dead. They are keeping the 2807 running with parts off of it. I would presume they will ship the last three US Rail locos off to either Kokomo, Indiana or maybe one of their other switching operations. I doubt they stay in storage in Hamden. City of Jackson and I'm going to say everyone involved wants them gone and nothing more than a memory.

[midland sub]

Aluchem located in Jackson on section of the old DT&I. Receives inbound cov hoppers of chemicals. Busiest customer at this point.

American ??? warehouse in Jackson. Receives inbound boxcars loaded with tomato paste for a frozen food producer in Jackson that used to have a plant spur but a no longer is used.

General Mills in Wellston receives inbound boxcars also loaded with tomato paste. Plant supposedly is the largest frozen pizza production facility in the world FWIW....

Austin Powders at the far east end of the old B&O main at Red Diamond. Inbound chemicals in tank cars and cov hoppers.

OBM Materials in Jackson. Occasionally ships outbound sand.

They do a lot of tank car storage at various times of the year. Mostly LP tanks in the summer.

[AARR]

Austin Powders at the far east end of the old B&O main at Red Diamond. Inbound chemicals in tank cars and cov hoppers.

I enjoy how you know the customers and commodities, midland

The Austin Powders in MI (near the Rogers City area) received blasting powder feedstock in covered hoppers. They received rail service until 1999 when LSRC abandoned the line to their plant. They now get it in by transload in Alpena.

[Standard Railfan]

... blasting powder feedstock...

That would be Ammonium Nitrate. A fertilizer. When combined with Fuel OIl in the proper proportions you get a very stable yet powerful explosive named ANFO.

Just seeing if the NSA is checking in on us....

[AARR]

... blasting powder feedstock...

That would be Ammonium Nitrate. A fertilizer. When combined with Fuel OIl in the proper proportions you get a very stable yet powerful explosive named ANFO.

Just seeing if the NSA is checking in on us....

Austin Powders markets their own version of it called Austinite but as you said its basically Ammonium Nitrate. I've seen it in both dry and liquid forms.

[midland sub]

I believe its the same material Standard mentioned. Potential for return of a couple customers returning. Both are south of Jackson on the out of service section. Clay company at Oak Hill and Nock & Sons at the end of the tracks at Firebrick. There's a small bridge somewhere south of Jackson with a problem that was never repaired. ODOT removed a grade crossing in Oak Hill too. Melvin Stone bought a quarry along the line near Oak Hill. Potential of them using rail along with a new coal customer. There is a wood products company just east of Hamden with a spur that is a possible customer. Great Miami bought a handful of 60 ft old auto parts boxcars for them to use. Traffic didn't last long and US Rail scrapped the cars. There's also a scrap dealer in Oak Hill with a spur. Rebuilt the spur and used it once to ship out and then last was used to scrap the old Great Miami boxcars.

[CG Tower]

One can hope that a new owner and a focus on service will pull in some of the traffic lost, especially south of Clay toward Oak Hill, back to the rails.

It's a sad sight to see actually, Oak Hill, which is where my family is from, had no fewer then five clay and fire beck manufactures within the town limits...now, what is left lost reliable rail service under the watch of the prior owners...sickening to be honest...

[AARR]

One can hope that a new owner and a focus on service will pull in some of the traffic lost, especially south of Clay toward Oak Hill, back to the rails.

It's a sad sight to see actually, Oak Hill, which is where my family is from, had no fewer then five clay and fire beck manufactures within the town limits...now, what is left lost reliable rail service under the watch of the prior owners...sickening to be honest...

IIRC from my DT&I book in the DT&I days those clay and fire brick mfg's were good customers.

[CG Tower]

Yes, very good customers. When they closed the B&O depot and agency in Oak Hill, I was able to rescue three or four boxes of car placement records...it was fascinating to see where everything went at the time (early 1980's). All the fire brick plants would crank out three or four box car loads per day. Cedar Heights a similar count with covered hoppers...the list goes on and on.

CG

[CG Tower]

Oh, and speaking of Cedar Heights Clay in Oak Hill, in the late 1960's and 1970's they had a fleet of their own covered hoppers...all of which were former DT&I cars and rebuilt and painted at the Jackson Car Shops. I can't remember if I've posted this before or not, but here it is for those interested:


Cedar Heights Clay, 101 by CG Tower, MP 142.3, on Flickr

[AARR]

Oh, and speaking of Cedar Heights Clay in Oak Hill, in the late 1960's and 1970's they had a fleet of their own covered hoppers...all of which were former DT&I cars and rebuilt and painted at the Jackson Car Shops. I can't remember if I've posted this before or not, but here it is for those interested:

First I've seen it and me likes it But honest to goodness it looks like a model, not the prototype.

[CG Tower]

I have several more photos of those cars, this photo is from the first spotting of the cars at Cedar Heights in the spring of 1969. Their fleet grew a bit more after the initial cars to around 15. One in fact was painted into a Bi-Centinnal paint scheme in 1976.

CG Tower

Oh, and speaking of Cedar Heights Clay in Oak Hill, in the late 1960's and 1970's they had a fleet of their own covered hoppers...all of which were former DT&I cars and rebuilt and painted at the Jackson Car Shops. I can't remember if I've posted this before or not, but here it is for those interested:

First I've seen it and me likes it But honest to goodness it looks like a model, not the prototype.

[strugglin]

OSCR #104 GP7 & #2153 GP10 are already on the line in service in Jackson. These were the former Indiana Eastern units owned by Respondek which were in use on the line out of Cottage Grove, IN, seen here in October 2012:



As mentioned, they have since been repainted into a very dark Brunswick Green paint scheme, similar to the Penn Central days. I will post pics of the units here once I make my next trip south near Jackson.

[OSRR]

Oh, and speaking of Cedar Heights Clay in Oak Hill, in the late 1960's and 1970's they had a fleet of their own covered hoppers...all of which were former DT&I cars and rebuilt and painted at the Jackson Car Shops. I can't remember if I've posted this before or not, but here it is for those interested.

I hate to necro a thread but its relevent.

What exactly did Cedar Heights ship? Also, was the plant down the road owned by the same company? I've seen pictures of open top CSX aggregate hoppers in there.

[AARR]

I think they shipped clay used for either brick or fire brick

Oh, and speaking of Cedar Heights Clay in Oak Hill, in the late 1960's and 1970's they had a fleet of their own covered hoppers...all of which were former DT&I cars and rebuilt and painted at the Jackson Car Shops. I can't remember if I've posted this before or not, but here it is for those interested.

I hate to necro a thread but its relevent.

What exactly did Cedar Heights ship? Also, was the plant down the road owned by the same company? I've seen pictures of open top CSX aggregate hoppers in there.

[midland sub]

CG is a much better source of info on this. But both plants were Cedar Heights. They loaded clay into those CSX aggregate hoppers until spring of 2010 when the track was taken out of service by bridge issues.

Oh, and speaking of Cedar Heights Clay in Oak Hill, in the late 1960's and 1970's they had a fleet of their own covered hoppers...all of which were former DT&I cars and rebuilt and painted at the Jackson Car Shops. I can't remember if I've posted this before or not, but here it is for those interested.

I hate to necro a thread but its relevent.

What exactly did Cedar Heights ship? Also, was the plant down the road owned by the same company? I've seen pictures of open top CSX aggregate hoppers in there.