How Do They Unload Those Things?

At the beginning of summer I was hanging out on the above-ground reservoir in New London by the CSX Greenwich Subdivision.

Traffic was decent given that CSX operates fewer trains these days.

I heard a Wheeling & Lake Erie eastbound train get permission to enter CSX tracks at Greenwich for the trip to New London where it would get back on its own railroad.

My enthusiasm for seeing a W&LE train amid a stream of CSX action was tempered somewhat by the fact that both locomotives were running long hood forward.

Much of the consist of the train was gondolas loaded with limestone. That raised a question in mind as to how the stone is unloaded.

Most of the stone I’ve seen shipped by rail moves in hopper cars with doors that open at the bottom. Gravity then does the unloading.

But how do you get stone out of a gondola. My guess is either you use a clamshell bucket or you have to turn the car upside down as is down with some cars carrying coal.

My hunch is these cars are not turned upside down when unloaded.

On the W&LE’s West End

Much of the west end of the Wheeling & Lake Erie is farm country and numerous rural- and agriculture-related views are available on all of the lines.

A westbound train is shown crossing Bursley Road west of Spencer on the Hartland Sub­division.

The tractor in the foreground narrowly missed getting hit by the train due to an inattentive driver.

The October issue of the Akron Railroad Club eBulletin features a story by Marty Surdyk about railfanning the west end of the Wheeling.

Photograph by Marty Surdyk

Bonus Time in Bellevue

The 5413 has a pair of mismatched number boards as it leads its train out of Moorman Yard on Norfolk Southern.

Whenever I go to Bellevue I figure that if I get any Wheeling & Lake Erie trains it’s a bonus.

I go to Bellevue to see Norfolk Southern and if the W&LE comes into or leaves town that is value added to my day.

Such was the case during a recent visit in which my W&LE bonus time began in Monroeville when I spotted the railroad’s business car sitting on a siding.

A few more miles down the road revealed a WE train sitting at Yeomans with its locomotives pointed eastward.

I wasn’t there when this train showed up and when I left town about 9 p.m, that night this train was still sitting where I had last seen it.

There would be yet one more W&LE bonus to be had in Bellevue. The job that interchanges with NS in Moorman Yard came out on the Brewster connection with a former Denver & Rio Grande Western SD40T-2 leading.

I doubt that anyone ever tires of seeing the Rio Grande on the Wheeling, particularly when one is leading or if two of them are paired together.

A closer view of the 5413 and its mismatched number boards as it rumbles onto the Brewster connection.

Stripes on the noses of W&LE 4000 and 6997.

A tunnel motor and a corn field.

Near Ohio Route 4 and sitting beside the trail built on the former New York Central right of way.

Update on CSX Kent Track Work

Here are a few views of the track work progress for the CSX undercutting below the Wheeling & Lake Erie’s Cleveland Subdivision in Kent.

In the first couple of photos, note the A.R.C. lettering on the cement silo. “Akron Railroad Club” maybe 🙂 🙂

CSX 78 leads the Q394 in these two views from the W&LE bridge abutments. The white ballast “road” on the left will be the Shelly Materials lead.

CSX 7778 leads a grain train as seen from ground level.

The ground level view looking west shows how much the tracks are being undercut.
Looking east, W&LE 105 leads the northbound Solon train over the CSX tracks.

Photographs by Roger Durfee