Columbus- Bellevue Abingdon Update

[NW Mailing List]

Just after the merger, I recall walking one Friday evening toward I-71 
to hitch hike to Cleveland after classes ended at OSU. Saw an N&W 
non-coal train headed toward BE at a walk, so I got on the engine and 
told the crew I was on the Bellevue-Conneaut division roster. That 
satisfied the crew and I went to the second unit, figuring we would be 
at Bellevue in 3 or 4 hours. Well, 13 hours later we were finally in the 
yard, having moved at a blistering 7 mph average.  That meant I would 
not arrive home in the wee hours. When we finally stopped at the east 
end of the yard, I got off, saw an engine crew I knew and boarded with 
them on what they called #50, even though the N&W had given it some new 
designation. We were under way in 14 minutes and the crew slowed to a 
walk 52 miles and one hour later later to drop me off at the end of the 
street I where I grew up in Bay Village. I walked down the street, got 
the Plain Dealer off the porch, and walked inside in time for breakfast. 
Took some years, but N&W finally found some merit in the old "Speed Your 
Freight, Ship Nickel Plate" motto.

     WJPowers


On 11/2/2018 5:27 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> No, it was not - it was Pennsy from Columbus to Sandusky (trivia: the interlocking where this line crossed the PRR Pittsburgh to Chicago main line was called COLSAN as it’s where the main crossed the COLumbus to SANdusky line). But it was part of the Scioto Division (Williamson to Columbus and Cincinnati) and Eastern Region (all the original N&W and VGN lines and no ex-Nickel Plate or Wabash) so to the extent that the N&W,  NKP, and Wabash still lived on culturally, it was more N&W than anything else (but still on PRR contracts).
>
> At the time N&W took purchased it from PRR, it was under PRR’s Manual Block System (which as I understand it, was different from most railroad manual block rules). N&W added CTC sometime after the purchase in 1964. At my time there (1980-81), Columbus to Bellevue was controlled by a Scioto Division dispatcher in Portsmouth but Bellevue to Sandusky was a sub-panel in Bellevue Tower. The physical tower was closed in 1980 or 81 and the functions moved to a yardmaster’s tower within Bellevue Yard.
>
> More trivia: Bellevue Tower had the job of giving clearance cards and orders to Scioto Division train heading to Columbus. When the tower closed, trains originating Bellevue got them from the yard office in Bellevue. But for trains originating Sandusky picking up their power in Sandusky, that wasn’t possible. Since Sandusky didn’t have an operator, the N&W tried faxing the clearance card and orders (on 6 minutes per page early fax machines!) since they decided that method did not require an operator since no read back to the Dispatcher was needed. It being 37 years ago, I’m sure any grievances over whether that was contract-legal have long been settled.
>
> Still more trivia: Bellevue Tower dates back to when the Nickel Plate and PRR were totally separate and there was no reason a train coming from Columbus would head into Bellevue yard or v.v. So even in 1981, moves between the NKP and the PRR former lines could never get better than Restricting since the tower had never been wired to pass block status from one railroad to the other.
>
> Even more trivia: Old railroad names never die: with the merger, there was a need for trains to be able to go either from Columbus or Ft. Wayne on to the Wheeling and Lake Erie heading east. The W&LE crossed the NKP and PRR at Bellevue. Originally, there was also the NYC’s Norwalk branch running parallel to the W&LE and also crossing the NKP and PRR at Bellevue. The connecting track that was built used about a mile of that old NYC branch. Even in 1981, it was called the “Lake Shore Connection” as that part of the NYC was originally the LAKE SHORE & Michigan Southern. And back to Bellevue Tower, it was never updated to remove that NYC branch from the interlocking logic so long after the track was gone, the home signals were still there displaying Stop to trains that could never come just to keep the interlocking happy.
>


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