Sharonville Yard Question

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Railfan9
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Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by Railfan9 »

When did Conrail remove the tracks, and overpass over Kemper Road in Sharonville?

northstar16
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by northstar16 »

I would say back in late 70s. Think that rail merged into the main that NS uses now up north from Sharonville?

Railfan9
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by Railfan9 »

northstar16 wrote:I would say back in late 70s. Think that rail merged into the main that NS uses now up north from Sharonville?
I know for a fact it was after 1984 as the company's property that I work for ends at what was the old right of way. And in our plant building we have a picture of the plant in 1984 and the tracks are there. However our next picture is in 2000 and the tracks are gone.

heypal6878
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by heypal6878 »

Why did they take them up in the first place?

Railfan9
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by Railfan9 »

heypal6878 wrote:Why did they take them up in the first place?
From what I can gather is that these tracks were the receiving tracks for the hump yard. So they were probably taken up when the yard was turned into a flat switch yard.

northstar16
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by northstar16 »

Interesting, got it! I thought for a few years they were using it to store some cars mostly freight cars. I remember seeing cars sitting for days on the tracks. I never can figure out why railroads pull tracks when they could always be used years later for something. I know that particular track when out to the main on the NS out of Sharon Yard about three miles north.

Railfan9
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by Railfan9 »

I got part of the answer to my questuon, and it was when Conrail got rid of the Westbound classifaction yard they also removed the receiving tracks as well.
As to why they got rid of it. It was a section of track that was no longer needed due to the fact that it wasn't connected to what became the new yard lead. Also from what I understand the bridge over Kemper Road was pretty low.

midland sub
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by midland sub »

Penn Central had a make a decision which yard to improve and keep between Sharonville and the old PRR manual rider yard at Undercliff. Both were squeezed into their locations and maxed out on capacity. Sharonville was the best of the 2 and also on the major main for PC in the area. PC was also building Buckeye at the time which took some of the work from Sharonville and killed off Undercliff. By the early 1980s Cincinnati changed dramatically with the mergers to create NS and CSX along with the opening of Queensgate ended most of the need to hump cars for Conrail in Cincinnati. What did need to be went to Columbus and Buckeye which was a great hump yard that had plenty of capacity due to the abandonment of the east-west Conrail mains and the line to Chicago. So in the long run Sharonville got reduced to the appropriate size for what traffic was left. The overpass at Kemper Rd came out due to a road construction project.

Why not keep stuff like unused rail yards? It's a huge area that has to be maintained to some standards depending on local zoning laws whether it's in use or not. The liability issue is overwhelming along with the taxation value of an empty space versus leaving everything there unused.

Railfan9
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by Railfan9 »

Thank you Midland for the history. It's interesting that now with trains having to pull out across Sharon Rd/ Cincinnati Dayton that it can cause a lot of problems for traffic in the area.

midland sub
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by midland sub »

You're welcome. One of the major issues with it was as a hump yard and obviously still to this day is the Sharon Rd crossing. It's 70ish car lengths from the pullout tracks to the crossing. Doubling up a train off another track and you're blocking Sharon Ave for awhile.

Do yourself a favor and buy a copy of A Sampling of Penn Central. You'll really understand how things got to where they are today and more importantly why they did.

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cbehr91
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Re: Sharonville Yard Question

Unread post by cbehr91 »

The hump at Sharonville was shut down in 1979 I think. Or somewhere around that time.

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