Re: (erielack) ERIE IN EASTERN OHIO

[gelwood <"gelwood_@_dnaco.net">]

The trip from Cleveland toe Meadville was ten miles shorter going via the
cut-ouff instead of going through Youngstown.  When I worked CM-2 we went
to Meadville via Youngstown and picked up cars along the way. Coming back
we had a time line to deliver cars to the freight house so we went via the
cutoff. See my comments in the EL Ops section of my WEB site.

George Elwood
http://www.dnaco.net/~gelwood

On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Kevin DeGroff wrote:

> 
> 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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> 


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