New Symbols on the NS Fort Wayne Line

Railroading is constantly changing with traffic patterns constantly evolving for a variety of reasons.

Many of the railroads serving Lake Erie used to carry iron ore from the docks to the steel mills.  Most of this traffic has dried up as the mills have closed.  Some of this change is by the railroads themselves as they try to become more efficient.

Today’s example is Norfolk Southern train 13Q.  This train and counterpart 14Q run from Conway Yard near Pittsburgh to Elkhart, Indiana, although not on the direct route through Cleveland and Toledo.

Instead they run via Mansfield, Bellevue and Fort Wayne, an interesting routing for sure.

They replace trains 12V and 15V which ran Bellevue to Conway and serving Mansfield and Canton along the way.

The new trains also serve Mansfield and Canton but no longer originate or terminate in Bellevue as NS is diverting traffic from that terminal.

Just a few years ago Norfolk Southern expanded the yard at Bellevue expending tremendous amounts of capital in the process.

With the new pattern of operations that money probably could have been saved or spent elsewhere but that is the way of the corporate world railroads included.

Anyhow I caught the first movement of the new 13Q at Attica, Ohio, with the Savannah & Atlanta Heritage unit leading.

Article and Photographs by Todd Dillon

Tags: Bellevue Ohio, Norfolk Southern, NS Fort Wayne Line, NS Heritage locomotives, NS heritage units, NS locomotives, NS motive power, NS Savannah & Atlanta heritage locomotive, NS Savannah & Atlanta heritage unit, Todd Dillon photography