busiest route you've seen in ohio

[lakeshoredave]

ok here is a question for all ohio railfans. what is the busiest route you've seen over a period of time in your railfanning life. i'm posting this in here because of how traffic patterns have changed so much over the years in ohio with the different mergers, etc.

[CG Tower]

Depends on the era:

Prior to CR split, it would have been the area around Berea, Ohio.
After that, the first few days of the new CSX were indeed crazy in Deshler...my records from that day have over 200 moves in 9 hours.

However, if I had to pick a consistent route that is busy, it would have to be between NA Tower and KC Junction in the Cincinnati area.

Eric at CG Tower

[redside20]

when i was a kid/teenager growing up in Bellevue in the 90's, the mainline of the Nickel Plate, The NS Fostoria and Cleveland Districts saw plenty of trains. at the time of the Southern and N&W merger in 1982, trains on that line saw about 20-25 mgt (million gross tons). but by 1995 the fostoria and Cleveland districts saw 50 mgt and saw roughly 56-60 mgt by the conrail buyout of 1999. the 90's were busy times on the Nickel Plate but that was relatively minor compared to the 100,000+ gross tons that Conrail moved on its water level trackage. Over on the Columbus and Scioto sides about 25-30 mgt were moved on that side in the 90's. in the mid nineties on the Fostoria and Fort Wayne sides west of Bellevue, about 25-30 trains graced the NKP rails with 18-20 trains on average east of Bellevue on the Cleveland district.

[dominique]

Lake Shore Route for sure! I remembered in the early-mid 90's sitting in the parking lot outside of Don's Bar in Wauseon seeing a train blow by every 5 minutes it seemed. I seem to recall the train count on that line over a 24 hour period was around 100 trains. I went down to Deshler for the first time in the mid 90's (pre conrail-split)when the east-west line was still alternating between single & double track and the north-south line through Deshler wasn't even being used north of Deshler except for a local that served the grain elevator at Weston I believe. I was somewhat surprised when I saw about 60-70 trains in 8 hours, but I don't know if that was the norm or if I just went on a particularly busy day.

[bdconrail29]

Definitely the Lake Shore line in the late 90's. I did an all-nighter in summer '98 at Oak Harbor from 7pm-7am and had 54, 2 in the summer of '97 with 55 and 49, '96 had 50, '94 had 48, all 7pm-7am. Only 6 were NS, the rest Conrail. (If anyone wants to see any of these classic logs, let me know. I have all-nighters from Crestline in CR days as well).

Modern era, Berea and Fostoria are the two busiest places in Ohio. Think about it. About 66-75% of all traffic in Ohio has to pass thru Berea. Fostoria is basically THEE crossroads of CSX in the midwest and then add the NKP.

On an 8-9 hour basis, Berea wins and I'd say Fostoria second. Deshler no way. In my 6 Saturday logs in '07, '08, '09, Deshler in 8 hours the most I could get was 24.

[MSchwiebert]

Pre CR split, I would concur that the waterlevel was quite busy, but west of Toledo the 'parade' was an evening/night thing - with a few stragglers into the morning. Afternoons at a place like Wauseon were usually dead. The pre-split B&O was quite a different animal - especially west of Deshler (I remember one wintry day in Garrett IN being told that 30 trains had gone through town in the previous 24 hrs - almost double what was normal). Heck, the Grand Trunk even managed to run 6 trains a day on the DT&I (1/2 as many as the DT&I had, but looks impressive compared to today!) As for today, I do know that Deshler-Fostoria is one of the top 5 segments tonnage wise on CSX (#2 or 3 I'll have to get an updated figure) so it's not like its a streak of rust or anything. Along those lines, when the ecconomy was humming CSX from Deshler north would consistently see 16-18 trains a day - a count not since the days of steam - including passenger trains!

[CSX_CO]

I echo the sentiments on the B&O west of Deshler in the early to mid 90's. It was DEAD. I can remember guys saying "I'd get in on Sunday, never mark off, and be lucky to get out on Thursday."

When I first hired in, from the hrs of 8:00 pm to 8:00 am there would be a train going by the Garrett Yard Office every 15 minutes. Day time it would roll over and die, but the nights were truely hopping.

Practice Safe CSX

[dominique]

Sorry, My bad. I should of specified that the busy time on Conrail through Wauseon in the early 90's was at night. If I remember right, there was a busy time in the morning hours, pretty slow in the afternoon, and busy in the evening.

[lakeshoredave]

i'd have to say both routes at berea due to consistency, with the b&o route through fostoria being a close 2nd.

[cbehr91]

It's tied between the NS Chicago Line and the former B&O once you get past Greenwich. Yes you'll see a majority the trains on those lines at Berea but not all because there are a handful of CSXs that head for places like Pittsburgh and Baltimore.