Trains Tying Up Toledo Crossings for Long Periods

Some Toledo motorists are growing impatient over what they term long delays due to grade crossings being blocked by longer trains.

The Blade newspaper of Toledo noted that blocked crossings are not new in East Toledo, but with Norfolk Southern having adopted the precision scheduled railroading operating model the time that crossings are blocked has lengthened as the trains have become longer.

“It wasn’t really that bad until they started doing something different,” resident Tom Salona told the Blade.

Another resident, Chris McCrory, said delays have stretched to a half hour and even an hour.

Nick Fuzinski said the problems started getting bad last spring. “It used to be just five minutes. Then they’d be on their way,” he said.

Toledo City Councilman Peter Ujvagi, whose district includes East Toledo, said he has received numerous complaints about long blocked grade crossings.

“People have complained, because for a very long time that one single [track] line was not used much at all,” he said. “But now we have these extended blockages, and you can’t get around them.”

He was referring to the fact that CSX also has a rail line a few blocks from the NS track in question.

The Blade said the NS trains in question are headed in and out of Evans Yards, formerly known as Homestead Yard, in Oregon.

In the past, NS ran shorter trains and departing trains could conduct an air test without blocking any streets.

In particular, the Blade reported, the train that is blocking crossing the most originates in Bellevue and has a few blocks of cars for Evans Yard and the Air Line Yard in Central Toledo.

That train also interchanges traffic to the Ann Arbor Railroad in North Toledo.

The Blade said that this train typically arrives at Evans Yard in the middle of the morning to drop off cars and then picks up cars bound for Air Line Yard.

Most of the cars NS interchanges to the Ann Arbor Railroad are auto racks and that results in consists that are more than a mile long.

That is long enough to block most, if not all, crossings between Burger and York streets as the crew does switching and performs an air break test before departing for Air Line Yard.

To reach Air Line, the train must get onto the NS Chicago Line near East Broadway and Oakdale Avenue.

If it has to wait for traffic before getting onto the Chicago Line that means more time blocking crossings.

What has changed is that the auto racks are no longer handled in separate trains as they were in the past.

Likewise, NS used to run a train from Bellevue with just cars bound for Evans Yard.

A yard crew at Evans would then build another train with cars bound for Air Line Yard.

But now all of those movements have been consolidated into a single train.

Yet another complication can occur if an NS train is blocking a diamond with CSX at Ironville Junction.

That has a ripple effect with CSX trains blocking crossings in North and East Toledo as it waits it turn to proceed across the diamonds.

Ujvagi said he might write a letter to Norfolk Southern and perhaps one to U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur to see what help she might be able to offer.

NS Wants to Remove Bridge in Toledo

A bridge over the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern in Toledo that is often used by railfan photographers may be coming down soon.

The railroad has offered to the city of Toledo to remove the bridge at no expense to the city.

The bridge, which is located at the west end of Central Union Terminal, now know as Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza, is no longer open to vehicular traffic, but is used by pedestrians.

An NS government affairs officer told the Toledo City Council that the bridge presents a problem if the tracks need repair.

“The underlying track bed that the trains ride on top of is limited for maintenance because you’re unable to do any sort of raising of the underlying track bed at the location because of the tightness of where the bridge is,” he told the council.

Councilman Peter Ujvagi asked that the vote be delayed until he has the opportunity to meet with residents of the neighborhood who use the bridge.

Councilman Tyrone Riley expressed general concerns about NS bridges in the city, saying they need maintenance and are “in very deplorable condition.”

Kristin Cousino, a senior engineer with the City of Toledo, agrees with Riley. “[NS has] been reluctant to do so to the standards that the city will like.”

This View Will Always Be Here, Right?

I suppose, in retrospect, we should have checked the road construction in Toledo before driving two hours for a photo outing.

But fellow Akron Railroad Club member Peter Bowler and I never thought we had reason to think that the photo location we planned to visit wouldn’t be there.

Miami Street on the east side of Toledo passes over the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern just east of the street bridge over the railroad’s bridge over the Maumee River.

The plan was to get there by mid to late morning, shoot an eastbound or two and then head east on the Chicago Line in search of other locations.

We had no trouble finding Miami Street, but we had no sooner turned on it when we saw “road closed” signs.

The detour began a couple blocks before the bridge, so we found a place to park and walked down the adjacent sidewalk.

The bridge was gone and construction workers were in the process of building a new one.

We presume that as is the case these days that the new bridge will come with fences that hinder photography.

I’ve only been to Miami Street once. Once the new bridge is open, there is nothing to say I can’t go back there. But  the open view that existed for decades probably will be gone.

This image of an eastbound NS train was made in April 2007 and is now a reminder of what we were unable to get.

Article by Craig Sanders, Photograph by Peter Bowler