Lima Switcher in Cincinnati

We caught this Lima-built 750 horsepower switcher near Cincinnati Union Terminal near Cincinnati Union Terminal in the late 1960s. It was being stored at the time.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Cincinnati Bridge Project Gets Federal Grant

A Cincinnati bridge project has received a federal Infrastructure for Rebuilding America grant.

The $127.12 million grant was awarded to the Western Hills Viaduct Replacement project, which involved constructing a new bridge south of the existing viaduct.

The new bridge will connect with a revamped interchange with Interstate 75 and replace an 85-year old structure that is in poor condition.

“The project will allow for reliable and efficient freight movement by road and rail, as the increased spacing of supports will allow for rail realignment and provide a new access point to the CSX intermodal facility,” said a summary of the project in a U.S. Department of Transportation news release.

The Cincinnati bridge project was one of 16 projects that are sharing $1.5 billion in INFRA funding of highway, multimodal freight and rail projects.

Grants were also awarded for projects in Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

The Rockport Bridge Rehabilitation Freight Rail Project in Ohio and Muhlenberg Counties in Kentucky received $17.33 million for replacement of the Rockport Railroad Bridge deck, filling in portions of the existing approach with rock fill and culvert pipes, and upgrading the electrical and mechanical components that allow the 100-year-old bridge to be raised to accommodate river traffic.

In Philadelphia, $20.34 million was awarded to the Tioga Marine Terminal Access and Capacity Enhancements Project.

The funding will be used for construction of an approximately 100,000-square-foot warehouse with rail access, employee parking and loading docks at the Tioga Marine Terminal. The project will also relocate and construct a new modernized gate complex and relocate an existing maintenance facility.

ORHS Awards 2 Grants for Rail Infrastructure

Two grants have been awarded by the Ohio Rail Development Commission to pay in part for expansion of rail infrastructure.

Tessenderlo Kerley received a $75,000 grant while Cincinnati Bulk Terminals relieved a $50,000 grant.

A ORDC news release said TKI plans to invest $40 million in rail infrastructure at a new facility in Defiance over the next three years.

The plant, which is expected to be fully operational in the first quarter of 2024, produces chemical products for agricultural and industrial use.

In Defiance, TKI will produce liquid sulfur-based crop nutrition brands Thio-Sul, KTS and K-row 23, as well as sulfite chemicals for industrial markets.

CBT plans to expand its rail infrastructure to improve shipping and receiving flexibility with its serving railroad, Central Railroad of Indiana.

Work will include adding two switches, ballast and track to enable CBT and CIND to handle at least 17 additional rail cars on site.

When completed, the expansion will help reduce the number of times CIND travels to and from the CSX Queensgate Yard in Cincinnati.

The news release described CBT as an all-purpose inland marine terminal that transports bulk and breakbulk products, moving more than 3,000 carloads per year across western Ohio.

I Found Another Lookout Mountain Photograph

When I wrote the article and sent a photograph of observation car Lookout Mountain, I was thinking the photo was the only time had I have captured that car.

While preparing for some upcoming stories, I found I had photographed Lookout Mountain one other time and gotten better images.

I attended the 1984 National Railway Historical Society convention in Cincinnati with Marty Surdyk, Bill Sudyk, Robert Surdyk and John Surdyk.

We rode two trips and chased the trip Sept. 2 trip that Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765 pulled on the ex-Chesapeake & Ohio mainline along the Ohio River.

The trip originated at the ex-Southern yard in Ludlow, Kentucky. The train had to back over the Southern bridge over the Ohio River to Queensgate yard in Cincinnati to get to the C&O route.

The first three photographs were made on the Cincinnati side as the train is reversing, with a good shot of the Lookout Mountain.

The next three images show the train on the C&O crossing the river into Covington, Kentucky.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Cincinnati RR Club to Consider Move to Tower A at CUT

The board of directors of the Cincinnati Railroad Club board will meet on Aug. 26 to discuss a proposal to resume meeting at Cincinnati Union Terminal’s Tower A.

The offer was made by the Cincinnati Museum Center, which operates the venerable train station.

The membership of the club will hear a report on the Tower A proposal when the club meets on Sept. 2.

Officers will present an overview of the club’s options and the board’s views of them.

Rather than have a program that night club members in attendance will be given time to share their thoughts.

The Sept. 2 meeting will be held at the Archbishop’s House in Norwood. The September meeting will also be available via Zoom.

Amtrak Says 3C+D Could Start in 2 Years

Amtrak service between Cleveland and Cincinnati via Columbus and Dayton could be up and running in as little as two years, company executives said this week.

Amtrak Chairman William Flynn and President Steven Gardner joined several Ohio elected and civic officials in an online roundtable designed to build support for the proposed service.

However, getting the service out of the station hinges on Congress appropriating the billions the passenger carrier is seeking to develop a series of new corridors across the country.

Gardner also noted that Amtrak needs to negotiate agreements with the host railroads whose tracks it will use on the 250-mile route.

“We believe we could start initial service, maybe one round-trip or a few, without much initial investment, using current track speeds,” Gardner said. “We believe we could get started here in hopefully what would be a relatively short period of a couple of years.”

In the meantime, what was once called the 3C corridor is now being branded as the 3C+D route to include Dayton in the nomenclature.

Garnder said the length of the route is is the sweet spot for successful intercity passenger rail service.

“This service is the type of service we should have for major cities, and for an important state like Ohio,” he said. “Frankly, it should have happened a long time ago.”

The 3C+D corridor is part of an ambitious plan by Amtrak to expand intercity service.

Aside from the Cleveland-Cincinnati route, Amtrak has proposed creating additional service on existing routes through Cleveland to Detroit and Buffalo.

The passenger carrier would front the money to be used for capital costs to develop the routes and initially pay the operating costs of the trains.

But state and local governments would be expected to assume operating costs on a sliding scale with Amtrak’s share declining until states would pay all of the operating costs.

Although the proposed 3C+D service received endorsements from various mayors who joined the call, Ohio Gov. Michael DeWine has been noncommittal about it.

Last month DeWine said he was reserving judgment on the plan until he could learn more about it, including its potential cost to the state.

Although neither DeWine nor a representative of the Ohio Department of Transportation participated in this week’s online roundtable, Gardner said Amtrak is “anxious to work with the state to look at what that partnership could be and put together a model that makes sense for Ohio.”

During the roundtable, Amtrak said the3C+D route would have stations in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati as well as at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Crestline, Delaware, Springfield and Sharonville.

Service is expected to be three round-trips per day with additional trips being added as ridership grows.

The route is expected to draw as many as 500,000 passengers annually and provide an economic impact of $130 million.

The Cleveland-Cincinnati travel time would be about 5.5 hours, but track improvements could cut that to 4 hours and 55 minutes.

Gardner said that a train does not need to be faster than car travel, but does need to be competitive. “The time on the train is productive time, which is not the same as driving time,” he said. “You can work, you can have access to wi-fi, you can socialize, you can walk around. It’s a much more comfortable and productive method,” he said.

Cleveland has the most current Amtrak service of the cities in the 3C+D corridor being served by the Chicago-Washington Capitol Limited and the Chicago-New York/Boston Lake Shore Limited.

Trains on both of those routes, though are scheduled to pass through Cleveland between midnight and 6 a.m.

Cincinnati has a similar situation with the Chicago-New York Cardinal. Dayton and Columbus have lacked Amtrak service since the Oct. 1, 1979, discontinuance of the New York-Kansas City National Limited.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson was one of the participants in the roundtable and gave the 3C+D a hearty endorsement.

“We simply don’t have the luxury of choosing not to do this,” he said. “It is about positioning Ohio for the future. It’s not a question of rural or urban or suburban or Democrat or Republican. It’s about do we as Ohioans want to be competitive in the world, in this nation?”

Also participating in the roundtable were Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley; Crestline Mayor Linda Horning-Pitt, and William Murdock, the executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.

Columbus is the second-largest metro area in the country without Amtrak service. Phoenix is the largest. 

“Not being in that network puts us at a disadvantage,” Murdock said. 

“Businesses and residents are clamoring for this,” he said. “We know the community is behind it. Investing in Ohio, it makes a lot of sense. It’s grounded not just in major cities, it’s really important to rural areas and smaller metros.”

Murdock said when young people arrive in Columbus one of the first questions they ask is, “Where’s the train stop?”

MORPC released 30 letters of support from community leaders who want expanded Amtrak service in Ohio.

Some of the funding Amtrak hopes to land to develop the 3C+D route would come from the $80 billion earmarked for Amtrak by President Joseph Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal.

However, other funding would be contained in a surface transportation bill Congress is expected to take up later this year.

That bill, though, would merely authorize spending. Other legislation would need to be adopted to appropriate federal funding for Amtrak expansion.

The 3C corridor has been the subject of numerous studies and failed attempts to launch service.

The most recent occurred 11 years ago when the state received a $400 million grant to start the route.

However, John Kasich campaigned for governor on a pledge to refuse the funding, which he made good on after being elected in 2010.

Before that ODOT proposed a Cleveland-Columbus service during a rebuilding of Interstate 71. That also failed to launch.

During the roundtable, Amtrak CEO Flynn said the carrier has spent the past three years developing a strategy to expand service.

Known as Connect US, the expansion would touch up to 160 communities in 25 states on more than 30 routes It would be developed over the next 15 years.

Also included in the proposal is additional service between Cincinnati and Chicago via Indianapolis. That route would have an extension from Indianapolis to Louisville, Kentucky.

Although not part of the Amtrak Connect US network, studies are underway of a route between Chicago and Pittsburgh via Columbus.

Although no ODOT officials joined this week’s roundtable, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said the passenger carrier has spoken with ODOT and Ohio Rail Development Commission members.

Gardner acknowledged said that much work needs to be done to bring the 3C+D service to fruition.

“These are not insurmountable challenges,” he said.

Rail Events Planned for Cincinnati Area

Various railroad related events are being planned for the Cincinnati area this spring.

These include resumption of service of the Cincinnati Dinner Train. Tickets can be purchased and other information is available at https://www.cincinnatidinnertrain.com/

The Cincinnati Railroad Club will participate in a National Train Day event on May 1.

CRRC board member Jim Corbett said the Lebanon Mason Monroe Railroad has invited the club to set up a booth about/for the club.

Excursions that day will depart at trains departing at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

On May 15, a restored Southern Railway steel caboose, X554, will be moved in a parade down Elm Street in Ludlow, Kentucky, to a location on city property next to the city’s rail viewing platform.

The Ludlow Railroad Heritage Museum is hosting the move to the location at 49 Elm St.

A ribbon cutting ceremony is planned for May 31 at the caboose. It will be the first time the caboose will be opened to the public.

The event will be held between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. and has been dubbed “Party on the Plaza” by the Ludlow Heritage Museum.

There will be food and drink options and museum merchandise for sale including green tee shirts with an image of the caboose.

Cincinnati Street Still Closed by CSX Derailment

A Cincinnati street closed earlier this week due to a CSX derailment is expected to remain closed through Friday.

Gest Street, which passes beneath the Queensgate Yard complex, was closed after the derailment last Sunday.

Gest remains closed between Evans Street and Dalton Avenue while clean up crews remove the wreckage, which involved two locomotives and seven freight cars.

Railroad officials also said the bridge will need to be inspected before vehicular traffic can pass beneath it again.

CSX officials said that although the cause of the derailment remains under investigation, there is no indication that remote operation of one of the locomotive contributed to the derailment.

CSX Derails 7 Cars, Locomotive in Cincinnati

No injuries were reported after a CSX train derailed in Cincinnati early Sunday morning atop a bridge near Queensgate Yard.

The derailment caused a fuel leak of 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel and left seven cars piled up on the bridge over Gest Street.

A portion of the yard was closed due to the leak. The derailment was reported to have occurred about 1:30 a.m.

CSX said in a statement that the leak came from a locomotive and no rail cars leaked or spilled any of their contents.

Cincinnati’s Metropolitan Sewer District activated the Millcreek Dam as a precautionary measure to prevent any of the spilled fuel from flowing into the Ohio River.

The CSX statement said no waterways were adversely affected and the fuel spill had been contained.

Gest Street was closed between Dalton Avenue and Evans Street but was expected to reopen Sunday night.

An on line report said the derailment cut off access to CSX’s Indiana Subdivision as well as traffic moving on the Central Railroad of Indiana.

That report said much of the wreckage had since been cleared from the bridge by Sunday afternoon.

A CSX spokesman told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the locomotive working the train was a remote control unit.

The derailment also took down several power lines in the area.

Railroad History Hike Set in Cincinnati for Nov. 21

A railroad history hike will be held Nov. 21 in Cincinnati.

The free event will take place between 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. in the California Woods Nature Preserve and involve walking a trail that once hosted a narrow gauge short line railroad.

The Cincinnati, Georgetown & Portsmouth was built as a narrow gauge line in the 1880s and later converted to standard gauge and was electrified.

Known for its steep grades and numerous curves, it was abandoned in 1936.

Registration is required to participate in the hike, which includes commentary by docents, and can be done at https://explorenature.regfox.com/railroadhistoryhike