A friend of mine recently posted these photos of the recent re-construction of the former T&OC Eastern Branch near Stony Ridge (former NYC main south of Stanley). It appears track has been re-vitalized, and also it appears track has begun to be re-laid south of Stony Ridge (tank car photo appears to show now rail and ballast laid). As he mentions also, this was the first line with CTC installed on it in 1927. So, who's the lucky winner of the return of this stretch?
Photos by J. Osmialowski.
Last edited by TrainWatcher on Sun Jan 03, 2016 12:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
It been like that for a while, like the facebook post states, this is owned by J-Star and all they are doing is storing cars on it, and they had to repair the crossing due to the snow plows snagging the rails
CSX_CO: 10 minutes, keep hoping the yard blows up and I won't have to go in tonight.
CSX_CO: Hump Hump Hump all night long, hump all night while I sing this song. See those cars, going to make them fly, sure hope the double o' eight is on time
Ahh the pumpkin pole crossing. I noticed this summer they rehabbed the crossing and saw the cars stored there this weekend as well.
BTW "Pumpkin Pole" refers to the fact that a local resident places a pumpkin on the top of the flashers every year. A couple of years ago they put plastic jack o' lanterns up there. Someone goes to a lot of trouble to drag a ladder out there every year.
What smells like lube oil and diesel.... Oh wait it's just my "Locomotive Breath"
Jones Hamilton Co. is currently renting space from Jacobs on the Stony Ridge portion of the line and storing their empty rail cars. Jones Hamilton Co. is a customer on the line about 4 or so miles north of Stony Ridge.
Drove out there this morning, and since my last visit the former main and the spur south of route 20 have been lifted out of the dirt, had some new(er) ties put in and ballast has been dropped on the spur and is awaiting regulating and tamping. All the work done is well south of the US20 crossing and it looked like it continued on to the end of the tracks (access to the concrete plant off of Stockyard drive was gated closed so I couldn't confirm).
Google Earth released their latest satellite images dated April 2016. You can now see the cars stored in Stony Ridge. I'm not sure if they are still there or not.
Joshua Niederkohr wrote:Are they rebuilding this from Luckey and Pemberville as well?
I don't believe so. From what I can read from the city council minutes, the owners of the trans load facility in Stony Ridge are rehabilitating the existing rails which currently end at just south of Route 20 in Stony Ridge. But that would be awesome if they ever did rebuild south to Pemberville and beyond to Fostoria.
Just the existing trackage in Stony Ridge, from south of US20 to the end of track. If you continue south on the google view posted above, there's a spur off of the "main" (not sure which served as which during the active days). The track on the west side has been jacked out of the mud and has fresh ballast awaiting tamping/regulating. The track to the east has been elevated (it already had existing ballast) and appears it will get tamping/regulating work done as well.
Just curious if there's been any new progress on the Stony Ridge portion of the line in the last two months. Have they moved any carloads to the trans load facility yet? Thanks.
Went by there yesterday - no activity in the last several months. the track that this summer was freshly lifted and ready to be tamped with new ballast is now overgrown with weeds.
Had the opportunity to pass through town a couple Saturdays ago, there were a handful of stone hoppers on the rehabilitated track. Since I didn't have time to stop, I couldn't tell if the cars were: A - Empty, B - had stone for the concrete ready-mix plant adjacent to the track, or C- had additional ballast for the restored portion. Hopefully over the next few days, I'll have time to take a little drive over there and see what's going on.
It’s been a few years for this thread...is there still some activity in Stony Ridge on the short section of track that was rehabilitated? Can anyone confirm if the crossing signals are functional? I know they replaced one of the signals that was hit by a car A few years ago, but the relay cabinet appears to be the same from decades ago.