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From what I've heard the 8045 hasn't made a trip over the Midland yet to Wash CH. Never over there other than Sunday or Monday to see them. Did see 5678 and either 4071/72 sitting at Konrad. 5011 was the local power.

Reality of the I&O now is that everything decision wise is coming from the new G&W Ohio Valley Region office in Columbus. No one really knows how much longer they are going to keep using the Dayton Dist for the pig iron and P&G traffic. Supposedly once the grain traffic slows down the upgrade on the trestle in Wash CH will be finished and the traffic comes back via Wash CH. Might happen, might not.

Melvin Stone plans on sending at least one 60 car train of stone a week to the Logan Sub starting in the spring.

Went daytripping today over to Springfield just for the sake of it. Didn't see really much of anything moving between Columbus and Springfield and nothing at Junction Yard in Springfield. After making the Springfield rounds, we went out to Tremont and saw nothing. That was until we were heading east down County Line Road to Bowlusville and spotted something moving on the Urbana Sub. Low and behold, we spotted CFE 3888 heading south with 8 cars at around 1:30 in the afternoon. Traffic consisted of three plastic hoppers most likely from Orbis Menasha and five boxcars..from Damewood Enterprises perhaps?

Circus train to be in underclif yard by Tuesday night. Coming across the ns from the south.

I&O will be replacing the 86 ft boxcars it uses on the Anchor Shuttle. Draft gear is worn out and not worth replacing on the 14 remaining cars. Cars will be scrapped in Logan as soon as replacements are found. More than likely standard 50 ft cars will be used.

Anybody know what the WESTCO Signal project is? I assume they are update or adding some more grade crossing signals

Also saw they have out for bid to do some Grade crossing work, looks like around the Urbana area and and upcomming project on the SC/DTI south line

Track project on the South will be either South Chuck to South Solon or from Junction yard south for a couple of miles. Those are the last two sections that need to be done.

Got a couple more I&O sightings from the Springfield area to report. Today on my way home from work I spotted a southbound I&O freight coming down to the signal at Maitland on the old DT&I line. Wasn't close enough to catch what the lead engine number was though. Yesterday was a more interesting sighting, as I drove home from work and went over the ex EL Maitland to Cold Springs line on US 68 I looked down and was very surprised to see a locomotive on the point of a train heading east on the EL line. It hadn't crossed the bridge over Upper Valley Pike yet and I wasn't sure if it was dropping off storage cars or not, so I looked again today and could not see any storage cars on the line so I am going to assume(and we all know what happens when people assume) that perhaps the I&O started using the Maitland to Cold Springs line again, unless this was a one off deal.

I haven't heard, but it wasn't supposed to be much of a problem to fix to get the line back in service. It saves quite a bit of time using the Erie between Maitland and Cold Springs vs going into Springfield and then via over by Jct.

Went down to Chilicothe today for some Sumburger and stuffed myself silly. Then went over to Washington Court House to see what was going on. Covered Hoppers seen at Mars Pet Care, One Box Car at Domtar, One Plastic Hopper at WCH Plastics, and Lowes was stuffed to the gills with Centerbeams loaded with lumber. Didn't go by the other businesses, but CPS had some hoppers with fertilizer. Going out to Konrad, a few stray cars on the interchange track and spotted a block of what looked to be plastic? or grain? between Konrad and CH. Out at Konrad, GWI 5011? and NREX 5678 idling at yard office with a short block of boxcars and misc stuff on one track and a large block of covered hoppers of something in another. looked to be grain.

That's called the Handy track between WCH and Konrad. Another Interchange track back in the day between DT&I and B&O. Those were empty or loaded mash (ddg) cars from Valero.

Probably a one time shipment but a pallet company in WCH is getting a load of lumber in a few weeks from Canada. Aren't near rail so will be using Stark Truss track when it shows up. Pointless fun fact there at one time was an interchange track that ran from the DT&I to the B&O south of town. Ran from the current CPS on the B&O to the old DT&I where the old Armco plant was. Came out in the 1920 or '30s when an old lumber yard/tie plant shut down between the two. Basically where the pallet company is now....

First Logan stone train went to Haynes for CSX to pick up. 9400 and 5678 and usual 60 cars. First time 5678 has made the trip to Logan.

There are a whopping 50 T boxes waiting in Wash CH for Int Fiber in Urbana. No explanation on the sudden huge shipment. Presume they will end up getting unloaded at the warehouse just west of Int Fiber that can handle multi cars at once vs their one car spot.

stone train left logan earlier this week I heard it is going to come straight back with another load.

JRJ is going to build three more tracks and a real loader for the quarry at Melvin to expand and ship out more stone. Should help keep Logan trains moving.

I guess some of the stone froze in the cars and they had some trouble getting them unloaded. It seems like they are selling alot of stone down here. I heard that they have 60 cars devoted to logan this year. That new loading system would sure help them get loaded faster. How are they loaded now? With front end loaders?

Yes they bought 60 former Georgia Power hoppers that were supposed to be for Logan. Indeed they currently use front end loader to load the cars. They just keep getting bigger and bigger at Melvin.

National Lime & Stone is also buying more cars for their Lima quarry.

midland sub wrote:Yes they bought 60 former Georgia Power hoppers that were supposed to be for Logan. Indeed they currently use front end loader to load the cars. They just keep getting bigger and bigger at Melvin.

National Lime & Stone is also buying more cars for their Lima quarry.

I saw the tail end of these Georgia Power hoppers at Mound Street as they were waiting for permission at CP Russ to head onto the Dayton District this morning.

Went out to Dinner to Grove City and upon returning home went past Ashland/Ineos or whatever it is today and passed GWI 5013 idling at Southwest Blvd with a mix of plastic hoppers and tankers rounding out the rear. looked to be about a dozen cars that 5013 was pulling. Talked to a friend the other day and he told me that the Dayton District trackage rights lives on for now. He told me that the NB train shows up in the morning and the SB appears in the afternoon through Dayton.

Interesting they got reloaded so quick. Two of the ex Georgia Power cars must have gotten bad ordered last trip as they were sitting at the old engine house in Logan. Also two of the Anchor shuttle cars were sitting there. They are looking hard for replacements on shuttle fleet as they are all shot and have to replaced ASAP. Cars will be either scrapped in Logan or possibly over on CIND. Have to be 86 ft cars or Anchor has to change the loading dock walls at plant...

midland sub wrote:Have to be 86 ft cars or Anchor has to change the loading dock walls at plant...

IIRC in another thread it was mentioned they may look at 50' box cars. It seems it shouldn't be to hard to find used 86' box cars in decent shape. But maybe it is

When they came up with the shuttle 20 plus years ago it was designed with using the 86 ft cars the I&O got fairly cheap. Anchor built the loading docks based on them, so either Anchor goes to the time and expense of redoing the docks and walls at the plant or the I&O has to take the time to spot a car at each door. Neither seem interested in doing that at this point. The 86 ft cars they have found so far are priced higher than G&W is willing to pay.