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How did the mergers of the early 80s effect the traffic and connections on the DT&I/GT?

The creation of NS didn't really effect the DT&I/GT. If anything it might have increased traffic some. Do yourself a favor and buy the DT&I-GT 9 DVD set. You'll see plenty of trains with NS power. They might have lost traffic when CSX was created like the coal trains for Detroit coming off the L&N. CN finally realized the Cincinnati traffic was a lot like the traffic that went south of Springfield to Waverly and Glen Jean for NS and CSX in the early 1980s. By 1987 they figured out the return on investment to maintain everything south of Springfield plus now have to buy more of the old B&O to reach Chillicothe wasn't worth it so they moved both interchanges to the north.

midland sub wrote:The creation of NS didn't really effect the DT&I/GT. If anything it might have increased traffic some. Do yourself a favor and buy the DT&I-GT 9 DVD set. You'll see plenty of trains with NS power. They might have lost traffic when CSX was created like the coal trains for Detroit coming off the L&N. CN finally realized the Cincinnati traffic was a lot like the traffic that went south of Springfield to Waverly and Glen Jean for NS and CSX in the early 1980s. By 1987 they figured out the return on investment to maintain everything south of Springfield plus now have to buy more of the old B&O to reach Chillicothe wasn't worth it so they moved both interchanges to the north.

I actually have that set. Some fantastic footage (especially of Waverly) but, I haven't watched it since last year.

I was just curious because by the mid 80s, any of the Detroit originating traffic could be interchanged there instead of running it all the way south to Cincinnati on a line that didn't have a large amount of originating traffic to support it (by Class 1 (CN) standards anyway).

http://dti.railfan.net/Articles/Articles.html Has a listing of DT&I symbols in place in 1980. By 1985, the biggest change was that the Springfield Trains were gone and the end was near for anything south of there to Jackson/Ironton etc. In the 1985-90 timeframe, the service to Napoleon (Campbells Soup) ended and the Delta Turns were axed when the interchange with the NS was moved up to Detroit (allowing NS to abandon the Wabash from west of Toledo to just outside of Montpelier). Other than that there was still the NS (originally Southern) Run Through to/from Port Huron & Atlanta, and the Piggyback trains made a reappearance later in the 1980's and there was still at least one manifest in each direction as well. While not as busy as the DT&I of the 1970's the Grand Trunk era wasn't like it is now with "station to station" railroading either.