Rj Corman Western Ohio Lines ST Marys, SPEG, Greenville

[alittlevanwerty]

What industries lie out on the St Mary's line? And do they have a symbol that they use?

Active customers on the St Marys portion are Omnisource in St Marys, the distribution center and Versa PAC in Celina, Coldwater Lumber, Accutec Films and Helena chemical in Coldwater. Crown in Celina, Trupoint and Veyance Tech (former Goodyear plant) and Bucklands elevator all have sidings but I've not seen them get switched. Pretty sure Trupoint ships as they have space for maybe 60 cars and a trac Mobil on site. The minster branch south of the St Marys wye also has a bridge builder that receives I beams and Precision Strip that receives the occasion load of coils and ships scrap.

[alittlevanwerty]

They as WL30 on all branches of the Western Ohio Lines.

[JoJames]

Milepost 308 was from St Louis and the milepost 107 was from Bellevue or Sandusky.

[howeld]

If anyone cares to know the spur track to the landmark grain elevator in Celina may be taken up soon. The elevator has built a new silo where railcars loaded and the tracks have been removed at the Market st crossing. There was only room to load three cars at a time and it has been at least 10 years since Ive seen anything loaded. Grain is trucked to Elgin currently.

[AARR]

If anyone cares to know the spur track to the landmark grain elevator in Celina may be taken up soon.

I like to read about updates to customers even if its not so good news

[alittlevanwerty]

I think Elgin was an odd place to make their main rail shipping/receiving point but at least it gives that line steady traffic. Wish they ran unit trains on the St Marys line though!

[howeld]

I always wondered why they didn't build a load out on the old Cincinnati Northern tracks that were on west side of the facility. The tracks were in place a good half mile north of the elevator till about 10-15 years ago rail was heavier and in much better shape than the spur that was used. Toward the end of use the elevator would use tractor to pull rail cars from Rj corman mainline to the elevator as the locomotives wouldnt stay on tracks.

[midland sub]

CSX is very, very competitive on rates for 90 car grain trains. Elgin has a far better set up to load 90 car trains to justify the expense of the faster loading equipment and trucking the grain in from other locations. Not many small grain elevators using rail anymore, even on shortlines.

Interesting to watch grain traffic and how it's evolved in the past 15 to 20 years by rail. Changed from the small four or five cars at a time to the 15 car unit rates. Then jumped up to 50 to 65 car trains with CSX and 75 for NS and their shortline connections. Now the push is for 90 cars on CSX. The grain traffic on the I&O around Springfield on the DT&I used to be about an even split between CSX and NS. Once the I&O got the Midland it switched to entirely CSX, but NS was about to grab some back when CSX marketing really pushed hard with great rates and Trupointe and Heritage Co-op both converted a location to handle 90 car trains. So everything still goes 100% CSX.

There's really only two grain elevators on the south end of the I&O that still load short cuts (less than 15 cars) of cars at a time. Thackery on the DT&I (which I think shuttles to the Lima ethanol plant) and Sabina Farmers on the Midland. Odd to not see the smaller ones loading grain.

[alittlevanwerty]

I'm still waiting to see Trupoint in St Marys ship any cars, I've seen none there in the 3 years I've lived in NW Ohio. They have a decent sized track setup and a tracmobil under their unload. Has anyone on here seen cars there recently?

[AARR]

Interesting to watch grain traffic and how it's evolved in the past 15 to 20 years by rail.

Same here in MI. The ROW's are dotted with elevators who would ship 1-5 cars at a time totaling a hundred or two a year and now they do everything by truck to larger elevators or local users such as ethanol plants.

[bnsf8000]

alittlevanwerty, Trupointe hasn't loaded anything for some years. I believe under a former company name they quit using rail and have never went back. At least the track is still in place, so let's hope someday rates or whatever become attractive again.

PW

[howeld]

Rj Corman train in Celina on way to Coldwater at 2:10pm

[alittlevanwerty]

1731/1806 switching Versa Pac in Celina. 1 empty out, 3 loads in.

[alittlevanwerty]

Huge RJC today! 9 empty coils and 3 loads of scrap from precision strip, 1 empty rail car and 3 empty tie gons from the distribution center, 6 loads of scrap from Omnisource and 2 empty centerbeams from Coldwater Lumber. Biggest Corman train I've seen that didn't have storage cars.

[AARR]

Huge RJC today! 9 empty coils and 3 loads of scrap from precision strip, 1 empty rail car and 3 empty tie gons from the distribution center, 6 loads of scrap from Omnisource and 2 empty centerbeams from Coldwater Lumber. Biggest Corman train I've seen that didn't have storage cars.

Thanks for posting this, vanwerty! I enjoy it when short lines have a big day and 24 cars on RJC is definitely one of the biggest days reported since I've been following them here Is Precision Strip a new customer? I don't recall reading them being serviced before.

[alittlevanwerty]

Precision Strip is on the Minster Branch and has been a customer for years. They ship out the cutoffs from steel coil slitting in RJCC gons. I have caught them occasionally with a loaded coil car but recently I have been seeing a lot more in the south Lima yard. Today I had my proof they were for Corman and not the IORY. I followed the NKP from Lima seeing the load at Omni and the precision strip cars were on the east leg of th St Marys wye. I found the train in Celina returning from Coldwater but we had to stop at my wife's parents. Less than an hour later we got back to St Marys hoping to catch them but they had already pulled the cars and were speeding to Lima so no video! Here is them delivering a coil to PS last year.

[alittlevanwerty]

They will be making a run to Precision Strip in Minster today. At least 8 loaded coils.
Edit changed their plans, going to Elgin today to pull a car, Minster tomorrow.

EDIT 2. Must have been another change of plans, 1806 taking the coils down the minster branch now.

[alittlevanwerty]

Final count on cars was 10 loads, must have been 2 hiding under the bridge. Here are photos of them shoving into PS's plant.
RJ Corman 1806 shoves 10 loaded coils into Minster Precision Strip by alittlevanwerty, on Flickr

RJ Corman 1806 shoves 10 loaded coils into Minster Precision Strip by alittlevanwerty, on Flickr

RJ Corman 1806 shoves 10 loaded coils into Minster Precision Strip by alittlevanwerty, on Flickr

RJ Corman 1806 shoves 10 loaded coils into Minster Precision Strip by alittlevanwerty, on Flickr

[alittlevanwerty]

Here is the video from Wednesday.

[AARR]

Here is the video from Wednesday.

Did you hear the bells/chimes at the beginning of the video