Sunny Weekend, Part II- Tiptoe on the DT&I and other items.

[CG Tower]

Yet another beautiful day yesterday. We are getting spoiled, finally. We first catch K855 entering the east siding at Cairo, Ohio.



The I&O LNL southbound train Sunday had to drop off a coil car at the Steel Technologies plant in Ottawa, Ohio. This required them to negotiate the last piece of the former DT&I main track that used to exist between Lima and Leipsic. The remainder of the DT&I main was removed when trackage rights, starting February 14th, 1966, were acquired over the parallel B&O Toledo Subdivision.

Here, unlikely as it seems, a former SP SD40T-2 tip toes at restricted speed over the track, now known as the Ottawa Loop. The plow is a bit snow covered as the 9400 has encountered some large snow piles left over from the big snows of early February, a testament to how little used this track is lately.

Photo 1: The 9400 and CF&E 3887 enters a super-elevated curve on near MP 113 on the former DT&I main line. I am trying to imagine a Lima built 2-8-4 hustling Ford traffic southward...but, the ill sounding air horn on the 9400 quickly reminds me this is not the case.



Photo 2: Broad view of the 9400 and 3887 in the curve.



Photo 3: While the I&O man does his work, Q231 blast through Ottawa with a very healthy train:



Photo 4: Their work done at Ottawa, the I&O train reenters the B&O at the south end of the Ottawa siding.





Photo 5: Rounding out the day we see Q501 being lead by a former CR SD40-2:



Thanks for looking,

CG Tower

[AARR]

Thanks for posting! I enjoy the IORY updates.

[Y@]

That power on 501 lead Q395 west on Saturday.

Nice shots!

[redside20]

looks like the LNL got some cars from Flat Rock. or did they?

[CG Tower]

Yes, they still do get general merchandise traffic out of Flat Rock, and this could actually be several days worth of cars.

CG Tower

looks like the LNL got some cars from Flat Rock. or did they?

[Y@]

As far as I know, the LNL has not been running daily, so those cars from Flat Rock are probably several days worth.

[Buster Manning]

Either I&O started painting their bells the rust coating the Conrail used to put on their signal boxes, or that is the sorriest brass bell I have seen in a long time....Is this engine leased, or is it actually owned by the RA family??

[AARR]

As far as I know, the LNL has not been running daily, so those cars from Flat Rock are probably several days worth.

I heard the same thing that LNL runs to Flat Rock a few days a week

[midland sub]

I believe the LNL turns back at Delta and the Delta job runs to Flat Rock. The boxcar and centerbeam should be for either Springfield or the Mason Sub. There's still some loose car bridge traffic moving between Flat Rock and Cincy: tank cars and cov. hoppers of talc for example. There should be a decent amount of pig iron heading north this week. The IORY is putting together a corn shuttle train for Valero. The 3 or 4 mini 15 car shuttles bouncing around the IORY-CFE-CIND are going to be combined together for Valero. The corn is supposed to coming from IORY served grain
elevators- Metamora possibly.

[redside20]

I believe the LNL turns back at Delta and the Delta job runs to Flat Rock. The boxcar and centerbeam should be for either Springfield or the Mason Sub. There's still some loose car bridge traffic moving between Flat Rock and Cincy: tank cars and cov. hoppers of talc for example. There should be a decent amount of pig iron heading north this week. The IORY is putting together a corn shuttle train for Valero. The 3 or 4 mini 15 car shuttles bouncing around the IORY-CFE-CIND are going to be combined together for Valero. The corn is supposed to coming from IORY served grain
elevators- Metamora possibly.

I'm guessing that boxcar is going to Tri State Forest Products in Springfield.

[That Guy]

The car for Steel Tech. came off the CHFW last friday.

Midland maybe you can confirm this. I "heard" that the North end of the I&O is really hurting. The only regular job posted out of Lima is the LNL and everyone else was placed on the extra board or furloughed. The CFE picked up a furloughed conductor about 1.5 months ago from the I&O and we are getting another this week.

They are running a monster FWLI tonight, 140 cars. Also heads up Lima, CWR rail train coming out of SDI tomorrow night bound for Crestline with CSX power.

[AARR]

Midland maybe you can confirm this. I "heard" that the North end of the I&O is really hurting. The only regular job posted out of Lima is the LNL and everyone else was placed on the extra board or furloughed. The CFE picked up a furloughed conductor about 1.5 months ago from the I&O and we are getting another this week.

It's my impression traffic north of Delta is light. From what I read they make a few trips a week to Flat Rock and bring back a handful of cars.

Other than the pig iron it doesn't seem they get a lot off traffic from the mill at Delta. It seems at one time they were handling scrap as well as finished coils.

Grain from Metamora seems to be picking up a little. That's a huge elevator. Seems like it could ship a lot more than it has recently.

I hear IORY & ADBF are not interchanging even though I'm sure both would be interested.

[MDH]

Love the I&O stuff and good work in general (as usual) CG! Thanks for posting.

Michael

[CG Tower]

"Heard?" It IS. Traffic is WAY off...and yes, the LNL is the only northbound job out of Lima. It meets up with a Delta/Flat Rock train to move traffic south. It's a very rough state of affairs.

Saw the westbound LIFW at Van Wert today, it was BIG train too...was hoping to get him at Estry Tower, but my meeting ran longer then expected.

CG Tower

The car for Steel Tech. came off the CHFW last friday.

Midland maybe you can confirm this. I "heard" that the North end of the I&O is really hurting. The only regular job posted out of Lima is the LNL and everyone else was placed on the extra board or furloughed. The CFE picked up a furloughed conductor about 1.5 months ago from the I&O and we are getting another this week.

They are running a monster FWLI tonight, 140 cars. Also heads up Lima, CWR rail train coming out of SDI tomorrow night bound for Crestline with CSX power.

[midland sub]

I had heard that the LNL was down to making the trek to Delta every couple of days. At least the pig iron is scheduled to be 410 inbounds for both March and April. Throw in the miscellaneous traffic moving and at least the Lima-Delta trackage is seeing 100 car loads a week. There are several sections of the IORY with far, far less than that. The Blue Ash, Mason and Greenfield Subs together probably don't come close to that on a busy week. Delta to Flat Rock is a lot of trackage for the low traffic counts, but it's still a viable part of the IORY.

The loss of Ford traffic is a typical glass is half empty-glass is half full scenario. To railfans the loss is more psychological (glass is half empty) i.e. the loss of something we've grown used to seeing (E.T.T.S.). To the IORY and more importantly RA, they lost a traffic source that generated very low revenue and now they can focus on their resources on traffic that generates lots of revenue. Valero (ethanol-DDG), Delta pig iron and Lima-CIND chemical traffic are the big revenue sources for the IORY. There's plenty of other sources developing slowly that might eventually need the CN Flat Rock interchange. The Ford traffic wasn't worth moving for the less than $200 they were paid for the risk involved. Derail just a couple loaded autoracks full of Mustangs and find out how quick you're now the owner of all of the those cars.

[redside20]

Just saw a IORY locomotive actually the NREX 5678 with a cut of grain hoppers sitting at Burnett Ave waiting for a crew at Junction Yd in Springfield

[GenXRailMedia]

Nice work CG, I wish I could have gotten out last weekend.

[midland sub]

The 9400 should be headed to Norwood. It came south from Springfield Tuesday night to Wash CH. Maybe they'll paint the bell and fix the horn while it's in Cincy.

The 5678 that redside saw on Tuesday is working the Springfield job. It brought a loaded grain train to Wash CH with 4072. The 5678 went back later Tuesday evening on the Springfield Turn.