Giving it a Rolling Inspection

The crew of the New Castle Southern job was just about done for the day. They had tied down their train in New Castle, Indiana, and were wrapping up some loose ends before going off duty and going home.

But then Norfolk Southern grain train 50Q showed up headed toward Cincinnati. The NCSR crew stopped what they were doing and got into position to conduct a roll-by inspection of the 50Q.

Nothing was amiss so the NCSR crew finished their work, got in a couple of vehicles and drove off to other things until it was time to report to duty again.

NS Bridges of Oak Harbor

One in a periodic series of images that I made last summer

The Toledo District of Norfolk Southern in Oak Harbor has two bridges that make for good photo props.

One bridge carries the tracks over the NS Chicago Line on the west side of town while the other carries the Toledo District over the Portage River.

In the top and middle photograph above, a westbound NS tanker train cruises westbound on the Chicago Line and ducks beneath the Toledo District.

I don’t know the age of that plate girder bridge but it might have been installed by the original Wheeling & Lake Erie. The modern day NS Toledo District was back in the day the W&LE’s mainline to Toledo.

A lot of trains of the New York Central, Penn Central, Conrail and now NS have passed beneath that bridge.

The modern W&LE has trackage rights on the NS Toledo District so you can still see Wheeling trains on the bridge.

The bottom photograph shows an NS train crossing the bridge over the Portage River in a view that was made from the Oak Harbor cemetery.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

The NS Toledo District Parking Lot

This Norfolk Southern train on the Toledo District is stopped short of a grade crossing north of Kingsway where the double track becomes single track.

Back in July, fellow Akron Railroad Club member Peter Bowler and I headed west along the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.

Our journey took us to Oak Harbor and we ended up pursing three eastbounds on the Toledo District.

We noticed that all three of those trains stopped and waited a while just north of Kingsway where double track goes to single track.

I don’t know if this is standard operating procedure or was just an aberration on this particular day.

I’m not sure if I had the correct radio frequency for this line so I never heard any chatter between the trains and the dispatcher.

My first guess was that the trains were stopped because of congestion in Bellevue, which isn’t that far away. It wasn’t for opposing traffic. Someone else suggested later that it could have been because the Fremont local was working and had the mainline tied up.

The first of the three trains we had initially spotted in Graytown. We didn’t realize it was taking the connection at Oak Harbor to the Toledo District until we heard it call the signal for the connection.

We gave chase and thought we had lost the train, which had a pair of Union Pacific units pulling it.

About to give up, I spotted the rear of the train, which appeared to be slowing. It came to a halt just north Kingsway and short of a rural road crossing.

We waited around a while, thinking an opposing train was coming. But that didn’t happen and back to Oak Harbor we went although that for very long.

A grain train on the Chicago Line called a signal that indicated it, too, was diverging onto the connection to the Toledo connection.

We moved over to Union Cemetery in Oak Harbor and got this train crossing the Portage River.

Then it was on the road to see if we could catch it. Like the train we had seen earlier, the grain train stopped short of Kingsway.

We made some more photographs once again headed back to Oak Harbor. To my surprise, I spotted a third eastbound on the Toledo District.

We turned around and intercepted it at a crossing where the gates were going down as we arrived.

The crossing was at the west end of Sewell and the train was headed into the Kingsway siding.

For the third time, we motored to that crossing north of Kingsway where the grain train was still sitting.

After making some photos of the trains sitting side by side, it was back to Oak Harbor as time was getting short and we still wanted to photograph the lighthouse at Marblehead and then get the sunset from Catawba Island State Park.

Somewhere in there we also needed to get something for dinner.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Crossing the Portage River at Oak Harbor.

A barn or shed pays tribute to America.

There are lot of grain hoppers behind that motive power.

The home on the west side of the tracks had an expansive and well-maintained lawn.

That home on the other side of the tracks did not appear to be occupied.

The third eastbound that we saw on the Toledo District.

One advantage of being on the wrong side of the light was being able to make this image of the train passing a nearby field.

Almost into the siding at Sewell.

A long string of boxcars on the rear.

The manifest freight we had seen earlier pulls up alongside the still waiting grain train.

Waiting side by side.

A parting shot of the grain train.