Eastern Railroad Discussion > Midland Sub I&O Action

Caught the returning WCH-C job (Washington Court House to Cincinnati) yesterday amid waning fall colors and cloudy skies. Still an interesting lashup with a leaser SD40-2, I&O SD40M-2, new tunnel motor 4072, and ex-CN GP40-2LW RMPX 9457.

---

Crossing the Little Miami River in Loveland.

---

Passing the former B&O Station in Loveland. The station is in excellent condition, in use as a business (used to be an art gallery). Note the old platform lights.

---

Close up of one of the new I&O SD40T-2s.

---

Out of curiosity, how many trains is I&O running on the Midland now? Have they shifted the Flat Rock-Cincy trains?

I like that the old Railtex paint scheme is being used, but why yellow frame strips? Where is the white!?!?

The station in Loveland actually was a station stop for Amtrak back in the 80's, the Shenandoah stopped there as an experimental stop as they called it. If I had to be in Loveland, where I worked, I always tried to time it to catch the eastbound which was due in Loveland at 7:09PM. The gentleman who fixed up the station also designed a house for some friends. If I remember correctly those lights came from Cincinnati Union Terminal and he may have given one to them for their backyard. The track in the foreground ran back to Nesbits lumber yard which got many cars of lumber but not any more as they have moved. Rolkes Feed also got a load of coal now and then on that track too. To the left in the picture of the station was where the tower stood for the crossing of the old B&O(now I&O) and the old Pennsy(now bike path). One of the perks of working in Loveland from the 60's to 90's was the chance to see the B&O, CSX, Amtrak, Pennsy, and Conrail, and the changes that took place. Have a good and safe day!

The switch to the Nesbit Lumber siding has the points removed and is probably spiked closed.

The WCH-C is the only train so far to run over the Midland most days. It's based in Washington Court House and for the most part works 6 days a week and sometimes 7. The WCH-C goes on duty most week days at 7am or so. They end up leaving Washington CH for Cincy around an hour later or so. It depends on how much work they need to do in Wash CH before leaving. They seem to get back to Wash CH sometime after 4pm most days. On the weekends they seem to report later in the day for the trip to Cincy. The other trains you will see on the Midland are all locals. The WCH-A works the daytime and the WCH-B is the night local. The Greenfield line crew now works out of Blanchester on the Midland line. They work the Greenfield line 3 or 4 days a week and seem to make a trip to Wash Ch on Tuesdays and Sundays to help out and retrieve cars for the Greenfield line. I've caught a couple of grain trains coming up from Cincy on Midland from NS. Most grain trains come from CSX with CSX bringing them south from Columbus over the Midland to Haynes siding.

Yes they have shifted some of the Flat Rock traffic to the Midland/DT&I South. Any CSX cars for Cincy are now left at Springfield. The WCH-S leaves Wash CH every night for Springfield using the WCH-C power to pick up this traffic. The WCH-C then takes these to Cincy that morning and return with any CN bound cars from CSX in Cincy to Springfield. In Jesse's photo the first section of cars on the WCH-C are CN traffic headed to Springfield. The NS bound traffic is still hauled over NS's Dayton District to Sharonville. This eventually will be moved over the Midland/DT&I South. They also seem to route any engines needing serviced at the shops at Norwood this way. Last Thursday's WCH-C used CEFX 3092/CEFX 9500/CORP 4024/CBNS 5002. I believe the CORP and CBNS units were off line and headed to Norwood.

Also, the I&O was supposed to change their crew assignments on trains. Crews are now supposed to be assigned to a scheduled "local" that forwards traffic between one another. Delta, Lima, Springfield and Wash CH are supposed to be the bases for these locals. This way every crew works the same time each day and returns home every night. I'm not sure how it's working on the northern part of the line but it seems to be working for the crews based out of Wash CH. I'm not sure if this means they are dropping the numbered train symbols for the alpha locals i.e WCH-C.

Mark

PittsburghMike Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Out of curiosity, how many trains is I&O
> running on the Midland now? Have they shifted the
> Flat Rock-Cincy trains?

Is this the Keller Road crossing?

B Nice photos. I live about milepost 21 on the sub. Hear them before we see them. Bridge work at Spooky Hollow all last week. , New rail yet to be tied in at Rt. 126. Local business hurt badly by closing 126. RR got bad press in local papers for not returning phone calls etc. And they lose tank cars. If they pay attention maybe they can stop the big crack in stonewowk in Spooky Hollow trestle (north) from betting worse. Eastbound by here about 16:00 hours.

Yes, the first photo is Keller Road. And the only reason I was able to catch the train in Loveland was the slow order for the new bridge!

Shot an I&O inspection train coming across that bridge over the Little Miami in Loveland a few months back. CF&E GP38 #3887 and CNRY F40PH #381 were in charge that day. 3887 was nice and clean on the point. Wound up chasing him all the way to Washington Court House, getting shots of him at East Norwood, Loveland, Midland City, Wilmington, and several shots in WCH by the diamond with the Fayne Industrial Track.

MRL_F45

Montana Rail Link: The Main Street of Montana

One final note (and I hate to risk threadjacking my own message) but all of these photos were rejected by railpictures.net...although the Miami River shot was accepted when I appealed. "Bad cropping" or "too dark" was the universal criticism. Just goes to show me...shouldn't bother! TO is much more fun anyway!!!

Yeah I like the Railpictures site but sometimes some truely great shots get rejected and some really crappy ones accepted. All in the eyes of the screener I guess! I have a few pics up on there but I couldn't even tell you how many good shots of mine have been rejected.

MRL_F45

Montana Rail Link: The Main Street of Montana

The today's WCH-C will have another of the new tunnel motors, 4071, along with NREX 5678 a former CP SD40 in the dual flags paint.

jsvoboda614 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Caught the returning WCH-C job (Washington Court
> House to Cincinnati) yesterday amid waning fall
> colors and cloudy skies. Still an interesting
> lashup with a leaser SD40-2, I&O SD40M-2, new
> tunnel motor 4072, and ex-CN GP40-2LW RMPX 9457.

Nice shots, thanks for posting. Haven't been the WCH in over a decade, nice to see some action there. Never mind RP.Net...here at TO, we don't get subjected to questionable adverts either...