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Re: (erielack) ERIE IN EASTERN OHIO

It looks as if the benefit of the Pymatuning Cutoff was in avoiding 
all the yards and all the steel-related congestion.  Eyeballing it on
a map, it also looks a little shorter in mileage. 

I remember scouting out the cutoff in 1989; I remember driving on 
State Highways and crossing the tracks on paved-over crossings.  
Rail was still in thru the crossings (welded, if memory serves), but
the growth had taken command of the track structure.  When I returned
to the area in 1999, all you could see was the treeline and a few 
surviving code line poles.  Didn't look like a railroad right-of-way
at all.  The kudzu was on steroids. Access from any road was 
restricted by those cattle-type gates.  

I've heard a recent rumor that CSX was looking at the old Erie between
Sterling and Barberton as an alternative to restoring double track on
the B&O line thru Warwick.  The segment of the Erie from Barberton to
Rittman is still in place (served by the A&BB's successor), while 
Rittman to Sterling would have to be completely restored.

It seems that in the early 90s CSX was in the midst of a later-killed
plan to single track the B&O between Willard and New Castle (to match
the 60/40 single/double track arrangement west of Willard that existed
back then.  They only got one segment of double track reduced 
(Warwick-Barberton) when the project was stopped.  Now with the whole 
line west of Willard re-double-tracked, this 'bonehead decision' is the
only segment of single track remaining on the B&O across the state of 
Ohio.  Now, after the CR split, that small piece of single track has 
become an admitted operational problem.  

While the former Erie route has the hurdle of Silver Creek hill 
(the Erie went over the hill, while the B&O went around it through 
a swamp), I heard it was still being looked at for westbound traffic.
The primary cause for CSX's interest in the Erie was that those 
sections of the B&O ROW on the Barberton-Warwick segment that was 
single-tracked were immediately encroached on by environmentalists 
back in the early 90s for some 'green' cause, and the railroad now 
has a legal problem restoring the second main (its cost prohibitive
now due to the environmental accommodations required).

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