We’re stepping back a couple of decades to April 1996 to watch a westbound passing beneath the Ohio Route 21 bride in Clinton. The Baltimore & Ohio color position light signals are a dead giveaway that this is not a recent image.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Numerous railfans have capture this view of an eastbound on the CSX New Castle Subdivision curving out of the yard in Warwick and going through downtown, such as it is.
The photo spot is still there but the Baltimore & Ohio color position signal has been replaced.
Shown is CSX SD50-2 No. 8573 on June 25, 2012, leading an auto rack train.
The money shot of the day was this classic Tipp City color position light signal image with CSX 509 coming southward.,
As part of its installation of positive train control, CSX has removed vintage block signals on most of its mainlines in favor of modern signals.
That has meant Baltimore & Ohio color position light signals have been removed from the New Castle Subdivision through Akron and Youngstown.
But B&O style CPLs still stand in many places on the CSX Toledo Subdivision between Dayton and Deshler.
I’m not sure why that is. I was told the crew that was replacing the CPLs on the Toledo Sub had their work interrupted when they were re-assigned elsewhere.
Whatever the case, several CPLs continue to provide signal protection on the moderately busy Toledo Sub.
Back in early March I met up with Dayton railfan David Oroszi and we went looking to photograph trains and CPLs on the Toledo Sub.
The first train we saw was a northbound at Tipp City where a pair of CPLs stand at the south end of the siding.
The Toledo Sub is a north-south railroad which means that photographing northbounds is challenging.
The best I could do was get a going away image of the manifest freight with the CPL in the distance.
We heard on the radio that the southbound Q509, another manifest freight, was meeting the northbound at Troy.
So we waited a while in Tipp City and got what I consider my best image of the day with a CPL.
The northbound signal sits next to an old red brick building that casts a shadow on the signal in the morning.
As luck would have it, by the time the Q509 reached Tipp City the shadows had started to give way on the upper half of the signal, including the signal head.
The front and east side of the building was well illuminated. It might have been a better image about an hour or later but trains don’t always show up when lighting is ideal.
After the passage of the Q509, we headed north to Troy where another set of CPL’s sit at the north end of the siding.
The northbound signal is one of most picturesque CPLs on the Toledo Sub because it is mounted on a classic stand that at one time held two signal heads.
Now there is just one signal head and a dwarf CPL signal on the ground is used for the siding.
Dave had a friend who was railfanning in Lima on this Saturday so we knew there were two southbound trains headed out way.
The first of those was the J983, which is a long local. The second was Q143, a stack train.
They were running a few minutes apart which gave me the opportunity to shoot the J983 on the west side of the tracks and the Q143 on the east side.
With the Toledo Sub likely to be quiet for awhile we continued northward to Sidney. We did see another set of CPLs in the countryside, but it’s tough to photograph them without trespassing on railroad property.
It turned out the Toledo Sub wasn’t as quiet as we expected. Two northbounds caught us by surprise and there wasn’t anything we could do with either of them.
Also, it turned out CSX wasn’t done running southbounds. Both northbounds were waiting at the north end of Sidney siding for a southbound parade, all of them manifest freights.
The first of those, Q507, we bagged south of Sidney at Kirkwood. There is a pair of modern signals here and this was the best we could do.
The second southbound was the Q351, which we got in Sidney passing beneath Michigan Street near where the passenger station used to be.
Our plan was to head north to Wapakoneta where there is still a B&O passenger station standing.
But as we were cruising northward we saw yet a third southbound, the Q355.
As luck would have it we spotted this train just before reaching a ramp for Interstate 75.
We made a split-second decision to call off the trip to Wapakoneta and instead try to get ahead of the Q355 and get it passing a CPL in at Tipp City.
We got lucky and made it to Tipp City head of not only the Q355 but also the Q351.
That gave me another chance to photograph a southbound passing the CPL at the south end of the Tipp City siding by the red brick building.
For this image, though, I focused on the milepost markers, including a vintage B&O concrete post that gives the mileage to Toledo on one side and to Cincinnati on the other.
The Q355 we got at the CPL for the north end of the Tipp City siding.
That would be our last CPL image of the day but we were able to get ahead of the Q355 and photograph it one last time coming out of the former Dayton Union Railway bridge over the Great Miami River.
This outing would turn out to be my last railfan photograph outing for awhile.
More than a week later Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine imposed a stay at home order in an effort to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dave has suggested we do another trip to get some more CPL images. I’ll be taking him up on that offer but it is going to be awhile.
On the west side of the tracks for the Troy CPL signal as J983 comes through town.
Here comes the Q143. I elected to capture it on the east side of the tracks in Troy.
The mileposts were a main focus with Q351 in Tipp City, but you can see a CPL in the background.
Our first look at the Q355 would out last CPL photo opportunity of the day.
During the two years that the Chessie Steam Special ran hundreds of people came out to watch, photograph or ride the trains.
Here are two photos of the westbound Chessie Steam Special pulled by Chessie 2101 (ex-Reading 2101) in Nova on Aug. 19, 1978.
Notice how the interlocking tower didn’t seem to be leaning as much then as it did in later years before it was dismantled.
Another vestige of the Baltimore & Ohio in Akron is gone. CSX has taken down the last stretch of B&O color position light signals on its New Castle Subdivision and turned on the new replacement signals.
Replacement of the CPLs has been underway for the past few years with the signals between Akron and Clinton (Warwick) the last ones on the New Castle Sub.
For decades, CPLs stood in Akron at BD (near Evans Avenue), AY (Arlington Avenue), Exchange Street, and Lambert (on the Akron-Barberton border). All have now been removed.
There was a dwarf CPL at the interchange track switch between CSX and the Akron Barberton Cluster Railway in Barberton.
As part of the change, CSX has eliminated the signals at AY. The new block extends between BD and Exchange Street.
At the same time, CSX also cut in bi-directional running on both tracks between Akron and Kent.
The New Castle Sub is slated to get positive train control and some relatively new Safetran signals will reportedly be replaced.
Traffic levels on the New Castle Sub these days are reported to be 14 trains every 24 hours, not counting extra trains.
Two sets of Baltimore & Ohio color position light signals on the CSX Toledo Subdivision in western Ohio fell this week.
Effective at 7:59 a.m. on Monday (Feb. 22) the home signals at Leipsic Junction (milepost BE 155.7) and the intermediate signals at BE 153.4 between Ottawa and Leipsic were taken out of service.
Safetran signals were turned on at both locations. The signals at 153.4 are back-to-back signal heads on the west side of the track.
Leipsic Junction is where the Toledo Sub crosses at grade the Norfolk Southern line between Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Bellevue (former Nickel Plate Road).
A handful of railfans were at Leipsic on Sunday night to record the last night of operation of the CPLs.
A southbound manifest freight passes beneath the signal bridge south of Deshler where the mainline becomes one track.
For the past few years, railroad photographers have been on a mission. The Class I railroads are replacing block signals on their mainline routes that have stood for decades.
In many instances, these signals represented an identity with a particular railroad. Think of the Baltimore & Ohio, for example and what comes to mind? Color position light signals.
Most of the former B&O mainlines still in service today are owned and operated by CSX. That company has made major strides in replacing the CPLs, but there remain pockets and routes where these iconic signals still guide trains to safe passage.
One such route is the Toledo Subdivision between its namesake city in Ohio and Cincinnati.
In Deshler, CPLs still stand guard on the mainline and the connecting tracks.
During a visit to Deshler in June, I made it a point to photograph CSX operations with the surviving CPLs.
I did not see any evidence that the replacement signals are poised to go up here, but that process could begin at any time and by the time I get to Deshler again the CPLs might be gone.
Union Pacific, the company, is one of the few things still around that is older than this CPL. Chances are, though, that this particular locomotive is far younger than the signal that it is about to pass.
An auto rack train is about to enter the Toledo Sub using of the three connecting tracks in Deshler.
Coming around the connection from the Willard Sub and onto the Toledo Sub.
I didn’t get out here to get the head end of this southbound auto rack train coming past the signals south of Deshler. But I still liked the image I was able to capture.
A local could not say how long this signal bridge has been in place. He could only say it has been there many, many years.
CPLs still guard the crossing of the Toledo Sub with the east-west route of the Chicago-Pittsburgh mainline. A northbound is about to pass the Deshler passenger station.
The Akron Barberton Cluster train passes the former Erie depot in Barberton.
I might claim brilliant planning and knowledge enabled me to do this, but the truth is that I was wandering around the former B&O as far west as Sterling since I had not been in that area since the signal replacements. When I saw how boring Sterling has become, I decided to head home with no definite plan other than wanting to see Rittman and Barberton to see what they are like without color position lights and if any CPLs were left other than the intermediate signals in Akron.
I was hearing the ABC on the radio, but thought it was in Akron because the reception was very strong. When I got to Rittman I drove around to the ex-Erie Depot restaurant at the backside of Morton Salt and discovered why the radio signal was strong. The ABC was switching Morton.
I hung around until I heard the train get clearance east and realized the Barberton opportunity was upon me at last. I chanced an in-between stop in Wadsworth for a shot and then raced east to Barberton to find the station.
As luck would have it, I beat them there by a couple minutes and scouted for what shot I could make. I took a series of three to four shots trying to get both the station and train fully in the frame since it is such a rare opportunity.
When that was over I ran up to Barberton to see if I could catch the move crossing over from the Erie to the ABC home track but I was too late. I saw that the CPL in Barberton west of Tuscarawas is gone and not replaced at all but there is still a CPL in Barberton 200 yards west of the ABC headquarters and it might still make a decent shot for CSX, but I tabled that until another day. I am not sure if that CPL is in working order, I rather doubt it.
Article and Photographs by Peter Bowler
The ABC switcher works at Morton Salt in Rittman.
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