Maumee & Western Railroad

[DelayInBlock]

The Maumee & Western Railroad (reporting mark MAW) operates between the small towns of Defiance, Napoleon, Cecil, and Woodburn, Ohio. It is a 44 mile long, shortline railroad. The line has two locomotives, ex-Illinois Central GP10 #16 (a GP9 rebuild) and an ex-Santa Fe Railway GP7U, now CNUR #5. Trains operate daily between Napoleon and Defiance, except for Saturdays and Sundays. This was a former Wabash Railroad mainline, which ran Westward from Toledo. After the merger between Norfolk & Western Railroad and the Wabash Railroad, it became a neglected branch line under N&W, which sold it to Indiana Hi-Rail Company. Maumee & Western later acquired it, with financial assistance from the ORDC, when the Indiana Hi-Rail liquidated in 1997. The line passes through an area known as the Great Black Swamp, combined with the fact that it was lightly built to start with, means lots of headaches. Maumee & Western, with continued assistance from the State of Ohio, has made some progress, but no heavy maintenance has been done to this track since the Wabash days around 1964. The local port authority has offered to purchase the line, but Maumee & Western isn't interested in selling.


The first scene takes place on Friday November 4th, 2011, in Defiance. #16 was kicking out several cars for Monday's 16-car long train to Napoleon. #5 (CNUR) can be seen at Defiance Yard resting her old C-F7 carbody. #5 is often used for shunting freight cars at Defiance Yard, but occasionally makes it out when #16 needs a little more assistance with handling a train. It was interesting to see this operation being carried out. However, this was the last move of the day, and I was not able to shoot any more footage of the MAW. So, due to popular demand, and requests from my fellow YouTuber's, I set out to film MAW again. I caught up with #16 on December 28th, which was hauling empties back to Defiance Yard, just North of a small town called Jewel, Ohio.

#16 is again seen in duty, hauling this train on what is considered to be, "THE WORST STRETCH OF RAILROAD TRACK IN NORTH AMERICA." An employee followed the train in a white maintenance truck the entire way, just to make sure nothing derailed. It was a blustery, 30-or-so-degrees Fahrenheit day; but it made it interesting evermore. The rails seemed to resemble spaghetti noodles, strung out a crossed a golden plain. As the train entered into the center of Jewel, you can see the empties, "bob-n'-weave," as they slowly crawl down the track. A stray cat is seen walking the rails in this video, and I bet the cat could give Maumee & Western a run for their money - speed wise! Overall, this was a fun trip. The employees were very friendly, waved at me most of the time, and even gave me information on where to get the next best shot. I recommend giving the Maumee & Western a try next time you're out in this neck of the woods! If you're handicap-disabled, don't worry! Just grab a scooter and you'll be just even paced with this slow roller of a train!

[AC60CW]

Look for update tomorrow. I took tonight off from work to go chase this thing.

[MagnumForce]

Chase is a relative term Doug. Not really that many cars in Defiance so it can't be that big.

[StupidFlee​t]

possibly moving storage cars ?

[railohio]

That's what I'm hoping for, although I doubt they'll make it to LC when I'm free.

[MagnumForce]

Nothing sitting around to drag out to LC. There is not much in Defiance at all. I was just over there this afternoon.

[AC60CW]

Oh well, still up this morning. Going to go see what's up anyways.

[railohio]

#16 with eighteen cars, three covered hoppers and fifteen boxcars

[AARR]

#16 with eighteen cars, three covered hoppers and fifteen boxcars

Certainly on the larger size but not entirely unusual for MAW from reports I have read on this board. I think dsomeone's enthusiasm got the best of them on this prediction

[AC60CW]

Ok, got a fair amount of pictures from the day. I was able to catch up with them moving from Defiance to Napoleon around 8:00 or so. They were just west of Jewell. When I first seen them, they had MAW 16 on the lead and MAW 5 on the tail, by the time they reached my first photo stop, MAW 5 had been cut loose. Never knew what or why happen there. Here are a couple of the pictures, along with link to the set on Flickr if you want to see the rest of the one I posted there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/csx_ac44cw ... 951908415/


DSCF2010 by csx_ac44cw, on Flickr


DSCF2026 by csx_ac44cw, on Flickr


DSCF2029 by csx_ac44cw, on Flickr


DSCF2070 by csx_ac44cw, on Flickr


DSCF2051 by csx_ac44cw, on Flickr

[MagnumForce]

16 cars is a large train but not unusual.

[PAT.C]

I LIKE THIS REPORT AND LOOK FORWARD TO MORE PICS AND UPDATES ABOUT THE MAW..

So an overly enthusiastic young, non local railfan was mistaken. WELL SAID.

[DelayInBlock]

Ran into them on Friday, and got this video:

[DelayInBlock]

Excellent photos, thank you for sharing them. I'm glad someone could catch the train.

[railohio]

They went west on Tuesday morning with #16 and nineteen cars, one covered hopper and eighteen boxcars.

[MagnumForce]

In other news they derailed a car up at FC yesterday and the car did some damage to the bar "The Station" there. I may go see if there is anything to take pictures of.

[Notch 8]

In other news they derailed a car up at FC yesterday and the car did some damage to the bar "The Station" there. I may go see if there is anything to take pictures of.

The "Station" was open this evening and as far as damage to the station there was none that I could see, You have to remember that this low speed operation wold have to try reaLLy hard to launch a train of the ROW ! I was under the impression they had a loco on the grond yesterday. I noticed some timbers in front of the Defiance Head Quarters a stack of lumber. too small for a RR tie, maybe a 4"X4" the State of Ohio probably gave them money for RR Yeild Signs.. The monet that CSX is spending on the diamon is more than the MAW is worth... Love to see their Business Plan, The only people making money on this RR is the riggers that come in and rerail cars. I would almost think they would have a office in Defiance and Napoleon.

What are the car counts in a year for this company ? is anyone loading out grain cars anymore ? Lafarge active ? Oh can't there anymore trains still plug the west end ? I did see a spiker work this track once and that was over east of Woodburn IN.

While in Defiance today I did notice that the siding for the SCX inter chance was full as I have ever seen. mostly boxcars and alot of Railbox Cars and several CSX and EEC ? Is this Mansfields traffic ?

[AC60CW]

What are the car counts in a year for this company ? is anyone loading out grain cars anymore ? Lafarge active ? Oh can't there anymore trains still plug the west end ? I did see a spiker work this track once and that was over east of Woodburn IN.

While in Defiance today I did notice that the siding for the SCX inter chance was full as I have ever seen. mostly boxcars and alot of Railbox Cars and several CSX and EEC ? Is this Mansfields traffic ?[/color]

Here are a couple of links to when I was unemployed and actually could track the daily moves. You might be surprised to learn how many cars get moved on the MAW now. These are for movements in Napoleon only I may add. I started these threads to bring light to how much traffic the MAW actually has. Many were surprised to find that it wasn't the dwindling flow, some thought they were lucky to see 50 a month.

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=19561

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=21028

Grain cars are still loaded in as seen in one of my pictures above. There are 5 customers in Napoleon that still get cars. Cloverleaf, Oldcastle, ADS, Interstate Cold Storage and a fifth one that gets a tank car a few times a year. I know that they still load grain in Okolona (not sure about Jewell).

[MagnumForce]

The railroad is a money making operation. Honestly they try hard to fix things up but it is so far gone it is simply impossible without many millions, the owner has been offered a lot of money for the line from Henry, Defiance, and Paulding Counties and refused to sell if that tells you anything. It is also thought that the owner pockets nearly everything leaving very little for maintenance.

On the west end Lafarge does receive cars on occasion, also the elevator in Antwerp gets some stuff but they haven't loaded grain cars in years. Also a couple customers in Woodburn. The tracks are used for storage only between Defiance and Cecil and I don't think anything is currently being stored online anywhere.

Defiance has the two Mansville plants along with one other factory that receives sporadic service. Most of the Mansville traffic is in Hoppers, all the boxcars you saw are going to Napoleon.

[Mr. Tops]

With the condition the MAW is in, why not pocket nearly everything after paying exspenses (payroll, fuel, etc)? If they make money in the current state and any attempt to fix it up would be in vein, then pocketing the profits and rerailing some equipment every week doesn't seem like such a bad gig. Why spend the green on improvments that aren't necessarily going to pad the profits. Hey...sounds kind of familiar. Seems like there's some bigger railroads that do that too.

Similar to the way Class I's distribute their power to trains as has been discussed on here. It is more efficient to have train A push train B up the hill when they stall, rather than putting another engine on Train B from the get-go. As long as it's not a DAILY (or even weekly) occurence. MAW says, "why spend millions to fix the tracks if we only derail one car every other week?" When it would take millions like Brent said, to get the tracks up to where they would need to be to not have to worry about derailing. They are making money with those rickety tracks; maybe not enough to fix them, but enough to keep their head above water and make a nice profit. My only concern with that theory: does MAW handle anything that could go ka-boom, etc? If I were the owner, I may take a step or two on the precautionary side in thatt scenario...