Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

Anything pertaining to railfanning in Ohio.
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Bellevue_Guy
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

Unread post by Bellevue_Guy »

Nice new design. I especially like the interactive map they have on there, if they had but that up a couple weeks sooner I wouldn't have had to ask my question about subdivisions.

Right now WLE has another long yard bound manifest waiting at East St on the Brewster side. It has Prairie Rd blocked and the last car comes within a few feet of Bauer Rd. The cars that I could see were tanks, empty lumber cars, covered hoppers and more white refers.

Also, I looks like they made some sort of improvement to the crossing signals at Bauer Rd. There's definitely a new electric bell there and possibly new flashing lights.

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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

Unread post by penn central »

Thanks for the Wheeling updates i think there a neat railroad. I have been to Spencer and Brewster Ohio before pretty neat places. I think the last time i was to Brewster was in 2002. The Pure ex UP SD90MACS with the 265H engine in them where being leased and did they sound nice i love those things. They where being leased in 2007 that was the last time i saw them. Back in 2002 was mainly still the GP35's.
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Bellevue_Guy
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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Around 5:20pm today a WLE manifest went around the Mad River Connection towards Toledo. Its lead engine was in EMD blue and it had pretty even mix of car types, including a block of 4-5 of those short Wisconsin Central covered hoppers.

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AARR
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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Bellevue_Guy wrote:including a block of 4-5 of those short Wisconsin Central covered hoppers.
CN has a pair of GAF stone mines in WI they service. They mine, process, and ship those little stnoes you see in ashphalt shingles. Each mine ships about 20 cars per day.

I think I read somewhere W&LE has an asphalt shingle plant somewhere on their system that receives these cars (not all 20 per day :) . Or maybe I am misremembering what I think I read :?
Last edited by AARR on Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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redside20
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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AARR wrote:
Bellevue_Guy wrote:including a block of 4-5 of those short Wisconsin Central covered hoppers.
CN has a pair of GAF stone mines in WI they service. They mine, process, and ship those little stnoes you see in ashphalt shingles. Each mine ships about 20 cars per day. I think I read somewhere W&LE has an asphalt shingle plant somewhere on their system that receives these cars. Or maybe I am misremembering what I think I read :?
That would be Owens Corning in Medina
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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Josh. if you ever see steel products going east out of Bellevue on the Wheeling, they could be going to this place in Medina..Tru Fit Products

http://tfpcorp.com/
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Bellevue_Guy
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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Interesting info guys, I'm now looking at Medina on Google maps.....that's a neat network of spurs they have there to access OC and most of the factories around it.

Also, I see that part of an old B&O north-south line remains in service to get to what looks some sort of gravel operation north of the WLE line on Progress Dr and also to some factory south of the WLE on Lake Rd that has tank cars sitting on a spur. Looks like access to the later of the 2 from the mainline requires changing direction twice. Any info as to what those are and if they're still WLE customers? (I'm not sure how old these satellite images are)

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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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The gravel operation on the old B&0 on the north side is Medina Supply and Gravel, and the one next to Plastipak is Shelly Materials. The chemical at the south end where the B&O ends is Valspar Paints
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Bellevue_Guy
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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Until today I was unaware that WLE did anything at Solae

Today I spotted a WLE train with about 30 covered hoppers heading around the Lakeshore connection and I thought that it would be a good opportunity to get some pics of them doing their turnaround moves at the New Haven connection wye and heading towards Toledo, but I was wrong.

I made it to the Kinney St crossing as the gates were going down, and then unexpectedly to me he stopped. So I got this pic
Image

He started backing up, so I jumped ahead and caught him as he backed under the 269 overpass
Image

He backed onto the northern portion of the Sandusky district and stopped for a bit along N. Buckeye, then proceeded backing onto the Solae tracks across Goodrich Rd into the plant
Image

Image

Image

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AARR
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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I love pictures of industries served by railroads and yours are great! I could not quite make out the signs in one of your pictures so can you tell me what company that is and what they ship? Im guessing its an elevator of some sort so there may be grain and I saw some ammonia tanks so perhaps they receive fertilizer :?
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

Unread post by redside20 »

AARR wrote:I love pictures of industries served by railroads and yours are great! I could not quite make out the signs in one of your pictures so can you tell me what company that is and what they ship? Im guessing its an elevator of some sort so there may be grain and I saw some ammonia tanks so perhaps they receive fertilizer :?
Way back when that fertilizer adjacent to the west of Bunge (Solae) used to be called Horn's Crop Service like 20 years ago. Then they were called Royster Clark and now I see a Sunrise sign who probably own it now. The sign on the immediate right is the ever familiar Dekalb corn shell symbol. Crop Production Services has another facility on the southside of the yard across from Bunge on Prairie Road.
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AARR
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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redside20 wrote:
AARR wrote:I love pictures of industries served by railroads and yours are great! I could not quite make out the signs in one of your pictures so can you tell me what company that is and what they ship? Im guessing its an elevator of some sort so there may be grain and I saw some ammonia tanks so perhaps they receive fertilizer :?
Way back when that fertilizer adjacent to the west of Bunge (Solae) used to be called Horn's Crop Service like 20 years ago. Then they were called Royster Clark and now I see a Sunrise sign who probably own it now. The sign on the immediate right is the ever familiar Dekalb corn shell symbol. Crop Production Services has another facility on the southside of the yard across from Bunge on Prairie Road.
Ok, so they load grain there, right?

Royster Clark was acquired by CPS about 5ish years ago. I don't know about OH but in MI most CPS have fertilizer trucked in from a couple distribution terminals located around the Saginaw area.

Does Dekalb ship by rail?
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Bellevue_Guy
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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In the pics above, to the right of the tracks is a big soy bean processing plant owned by Solae that used to be called Central Soya. That's where the Wheeling train is going.

Those signs you see are for the complex to the left of the tracks with the white tanks in front, which is a separate operation owned by Sunrise Cooperative. The map at the bottom of their homepage calls it Bellevue Agronomy and has a aerial nice photo of it (and you can see that they also run the grain elevator near the railroad museum.) They do have a rail spur, to the left of their complex (it's the second track in the foreground of my last photo, with the first being the Sandusky district)

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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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Today on the Sunrise rail spur there are 8 orange PotashCorp covered hoppers as well as a red CN cylindrical covered hopper. I'm not sure whether it's NS, WLE or both that service them.

And redside, do you know anything about Great Lakes Packers and how often they ship by rail and which railroad does it? Just curious since I was inside their building today while my dad and I picked up some potatoes for the KofC.

I also saw NS 3328 (High hood SD40-2) sitting on the Sandusky district by the roundhouse with a crew member on the ground, looked like they were getting ready to work A. Shulman.

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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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Bellevue_Guy wrote:Today on the Sunrise rail spur there are 8 orange PotashCorp covered hoppers as well as a red CN cylindrical covered hopper. I'm not sure whether it's NS, WLE or both that service them.

And redside, do you know anything about Great Lakes Packers and how often they ship by rail and which railroad does it? Just curious since I was inside their building today while my dad and I picked up some potatoes for the KofC.

I also saw NS 3328 (High hood SD40-2) sitting on the Sandusky district by the roundhouse with a crew member on the ground, looked like they were getting ready to work A. Shulman.
Yes those Potash Corp hoppers come in on 306 out of Calumet Yard..And I do believe Great Lake Packers gets reefers, but have no idea how often they are switched,
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Bellevue_Guy
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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Thanks.

Just a little bit ago I saw that they have another WB NS Dash-9 powered covered hopper train waiting on the Lakeshore connection.

And I then I saw this EB ~60 car manifest leaving town and decided it was worthy of an attempt to photograph it due to the 3rd engine, so I jumped ahead to the NCIT trailhead parking lot at Sandhill road. 2nd pic didn't turn out so well though.

Image
Image

That's the Camp Chase switcher I saw in a power move that crossed Monroe St heading into the yard at 8:50 pm on Feb 16.

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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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That could be heading to Brewster for repairs.
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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Josh I just got done talking to Joel Bickhart on facebook and he had told me that Great Lakes used to get switched out in the mornings..Another person who works at Bunge told me on facebook that they switch reefers out there almost every other day late at night or should I say very early in the morning.
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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AARR wrote:
Bellevue_Guy wrote:Carey: Carey to Greenwich & New London to Spencer
Hartland: Bellevue to Spencer
Akron: Spencer to Mogadore
Brewster: Spencer to Bowerson
Cleveland: Cleveland to Harmon
-- Solon Br: Falls Jct to Solon
-- North Canton Br: Canton to Aultman
-- Sandyville Br: Canton to Sandyville
-- Carrollton Br: Furnace Jct to Carrollton & (Minerva - OOS)
-- East End Br: Canton to East End Yard
Rook: Jewett to Rook, PA
Valley: Pittsburgh Junction to Warrenton OOS
River: Steubenville to Benwood, WV
Pittsburgh: Rook, PA to Connellsville, PA
--West End Br: West Belt Jct to West End
--Mifflin Br: Longview to Mifflin Jct.
-- Clairton Br: Pierce to Clairton
-- Matt Br: Coke Yard to Monessen
They also have trackage and switching rights on: Akron Barberton Cluster Rittman Br. (Wadsworth to Rittman), Sandy Br. (Akron to Krumroy), Kent Br. (Kent to Ravenna), and Medina Br. (in city of Medina).
More importantly, does anyone know when they run some jobs regularly? Especially the branch jobs like Rittman & Wadsworth, Solon and Cleveland?

Is the line from Aultman north into Canton abandoned? If not, what is that section called?

When did they stop going to Minerva & Carrollton, I thought they sold that off to the COM years back but that operation failed and the WE took it back? So that means there is no longer any interchange between OhiRail and the WE?

If one spent all day during the daylight hours at Spencer, how many trains might you see?
Bellevue_Guy wrote:In the pics above, to the right of the tracks is a big soy bean processing plant owned by Solae that used to be called Central Soya. That's where the Wheeling train is going.
They used to have a neat old Amtrak RS3m located here, but I don’t know if they used it any. Does Solae still have it’s own loco for shifting cars? I know their plant in Marion did, so does their plant in central Illinois. Both of them are old Central Soyas, too.

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Bellevue_Guy
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Re: Wheeling & Lake Erie stuff

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A 78 car eastbound manifest went from the Lakeshore track onto Yeomans siding (so presumably from Toledo) at 9:30pm. It was lead by a pair of SD40-2's (one gray, one EMD blue), had 3 ZBVX high walled gondolas at the front, at least 30 tank cars mixed about, many covered hoppers including 4 separate blocks of 3-5 of the little WC ones, a few boxcars and 3 loaded lumber cars that were all separate from each other.

After the end cleared Bauer Rd I noticed that the switch indicators, which were both still showing green, would flash twice every few seconds. Then after the train cleared the switch they stopped doing it.....so I presume the indicators flash whenever an axle passes through the switch or something?

Also, I see that NS has put up a new distant signal for the Lakeshore track at Praire Rd next to the one that's already there for the Brewster track. Though it's not working yet.
Ribbon Rail wrote: Does Solae still have it’s own loco for shifting cars? I know their plant in Marion did, so does their plant in central Illinois. Both of them are old Central Soyas, too.
Good question. On the google maps satellite view of Bellevue (which looks to be from early spring of 2006) it looks like there is a loco sitting by itself on the west end of their trackage, though I guess that doesn't mean it's theirs. It'd be interesting to find out if they have their own, considering that their trackage ties right into the middle of a major yard.

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