Looking for..........

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M.D.Bentley
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Looking for..........

Unread post by M.D.Bentley »

During the Penn Central era . Southern Region, Cincinnati Division, M.P. 17.5 In Plain City. Looking for the exact location. I've looked at G maps and have a rough idea, but looking for a local expert . Thanks for the help.

jallenp7
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Re: Looking for..........

Unread post by jallenp7 »

Looking at a track Chart, there is a bridge at 17.51, in Plain City, I think the bridge is still there, so Gay street is 17.46 and Maple Street is 17.53
A block signal for westbound at 17.1, The bridge is between Maple and Gay, Just south of the post office, 17.5 is now somebodies yard or the middle of their house

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cbehr91
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M.D.Bentley
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Re: Looking for..........

Unread post by M.D.Bentley »

jallenp7 wrote:Looking at a track Chart, there is a bridge at 17.51, in Plain City, I think the bridge is still there, so Gay street is 17.46 and Maple Street is 17.53
A block signal for westbound at 17.1, The bridge is between Maple and Gay, Just south of the post office, 17.5 is now somebodies yard or the middle of their house
Thank you. Been doing some digging about a TBS ( Temporary Block Station ) that was at 17.5. And maybe why it was there. Thanks again.

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cbehr91
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Sure it wasn't 19.5? That was West Plain City, a handthrow set of universal crossovers where Route 161 crossed the tracks.

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Re: Looking for..........

Unread post by kwh »

I live about ten minutes away and moved here in 2005 way too late I would have loved to see CR heading through Plain City in the early 80's. I think it would actually be a viable line today. The one thing I cant find is any pictures of CR in Plain City.

Keith

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cbehr91
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Clear Block Productions' "Panhandle IV" has a clip of Amtrak's "National Limited" going by the depot.

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Re: Looking for..........

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kwh wrote:I live about ten minutes away and moved here in 2005 way too late I would have loved to see CR heading through Plain City in the early 80's. I think it would actually be a viable line today. The one thing I cant find is any pictures of CR in Plain City.

Keith
It most likely would not be viable, even less so today vs. CR. There just isn't much Pitts-Cols-Southwest traffic at all.
Brett

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M.D.Bentley
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Re: Looking for..........

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cbehr91 wrote:Sure it wasn't 19.5? That was West Plain City, a handthrow set of universal crossovers where Route 161 crossed the tracks.
I take it that this was double track thru here then ? I need to find a track chart for the area.

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M.D.Bentley wrote:
cbehr91 wrote:Sure it wasn't 19.5? That was West Plain City, a handthrow set of universal crossovers where Route 161 crossed the tracks.
I take it that this was double track thru here then ? I need to find a track chart for the area.
Oh yeah. It was double track from Buckeye to Union City originally. Then CR single-tracked from Meeker to CP EAST STATE LINE. This is because westbounds went Meeker-Ansonia-Union City while only eastbound ran straight Union City-Meeker.
Brett

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M.D.Bentley
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Unread post by M.D.Bentley »

So when was it single tracked and then pulled up completely ?

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Multimodalways.org has plenty of Conrail Columbus and Southwest Division track charts from the era in question. Milepost 11 just west of Hilliard was the division point between the Columbus and Cincinnati Divisions.

Yes, the line was double track Rule 251 ABS most of the way. There was a two mile siding west of Urbana (Rice and West Rice were the names, both controlled by the CTC operator in the Columbus dispatcher's office at Stella Court...more on that later). By the start of Conrail, between Columbus and Union City there were block towers at Urbana, Bradford, and Piqua. Urbana tower got torched under mysterious circumstances a couple of months into Conrail. I don't have firm dates, but in the '78-'79 timeframe the line was single tracked between Meekers and East State Line. Like Brett said, they did directional running between Ansonia/Union City and Meekers. Around the same time, Piqua tower, the crossing of the B&O Toledo Division (today's CSX's Toledo Sub) closed, and Meekers went from a temporary block station to a CP interlocking controlled from the Indianapolis dispatcher's office. Piqua Crossing came under the control of the Stella Court operator. Traffic west of Columbus was routed off of the Panhandle in 1981. In 1982 or '83 one of the mains (I think the westbound?) went OOS and the signal system was suspended (I wish I had that General Order... :| ). Tracks were ripped up circa 1985.

Because of the long-standing PRR policy of dispatchers not being able to physically line trains, in Columbus and a few other places there was a block operator staffed in the dispatcher's office who worked under the dispatchers who communicated with and lined the trains. In 1978, Conrail eliminated the Cincinnati Division and merged it with the Columbus Division, placing the line east of Meekers in the Columbus Division.

Probably more information than you were looking for, but it's all important.

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Re: Looking for..........

Unread post by M.D.Bentley »

I forgot about that site. No, its never too much info. Thanks for sharing. Helps a ton with understanding how things were. Trying to dig up some old timetables for the area now. Thanks again.

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Unread post by cbehr91 »

You're welcome. If you are looking post-1978 division reshuffling, east of Meekers was Columbus Division, Meekers to Winnemac was Southwest Division, and what little was left on into Chicago was Chicago Division.

I did a little more digging last night and by November of '81 the westbound main east of Bradford was already out-of-service (I think the mass exodus of trains was in June, although come Thanksgiving there were a handful still running). Rails were removed between '85 and '86.

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M.D.Bentley wrote:I forgot about that site. No, its never too much info. Thanks for sharing. Helps a ton with understanding how things were. Trying to dig up some old timetables for the area now. Thanks again.
Traffic was interesting. It was very busy under CR for a few reasons. CR ran all of their Panhandle stuff (or most of it that is) via the Bradford Side as it was known to the Union City connection with the Big 4 that PC had built in the early 70's. In other words, all the southwestern traffic went that way vs. the Cincinnati side to Springfield or Xenia routings. So you could have up to 30 trains/day through Plain City since most of the Indy/St. Louis traffic was going that way by then. Of course the connections at Crestline and Ridgeway ended all of this...
Brett

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The Columbus-Cincinnati and south stuff obviously ran either via the NYC through Springfield or the PRR via Xenia. Mostly though, the hill east of Dayton was just too steep so traffic that way was discouraged. I think the last freight through Xenia was eastbound CICO in 1983 if I recall correctly. West of Dayton via either Xenia or Springfield Mail-10/11 and #30/#31 were really the only 4 left. All else ran via the Bradford Side to Union City then to Indy/St. Louis on the Big 4. West of Union City on the Logansport side there were 2 scheduled per day, the AST-1 and AST-2 to the TP&W interchange but that didn't last long. Coal was the main commodity on that side in CR years.

Traffic consisted mostly of chemical traffic to the Cotton Belt and UP for points such as North Little Rock, Houston, and Kingsville. The hottest trains were TV-3 and TV-4.
Brett

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