Eastern Railroad Discussion > Ohio Railroad Crossing Inventory

In looking through the Ohio Department of Transportation website; I noted a link to a "statewide crossing inventory." I selected it and noted that it was a database listing of all just about all level railroad crossings in Ohio. I was not about to verify that personally, as the listing is so extensive. My home county, Erie, not a particulary big one compared to others in Ohio, had 71 such crossings listed (all Norfolk Southern now). Each listing in the database includes four images of the crossing (north/south/east/west views); links to both MapBlast(r) and TopoZone(r) online maps; technical information about the crossing, including the angle of the tracks to the road, the type of protection devices (including "standard" vs. "buckeye" crossbucks), lattitude/longitude/elevation and a profile; an engineering drowing of the crossing, if available, and more. A lot of work went into this database and I think Ohio railfans will find it interesting. You can visit the site at:

http://www.dot.state.oh.us/ohiorail

The image below is the east view of the NS crossing at Coen Road in Vermilion Township, Erie County. This is the original Nickle Plate main; the track diverging to the left is the new connecting track to the NS ex-Conrail main just out of sight on the left:

---

Is this where NS was forced to outright purchase a few farms to make said connection? I thought I recalled the story a few years ago where easements were not permitted, and the farmers involved used the situation for a substantial monetary gain? NS landed up purchasing the farms lock, stock and barrel. RichS.

I don't know, in this case, but it does not sound surprising that NS had to pony-up (pardon the pun) the bucks to buy out the farmland.

I have included another photograph from this database; Columbus St. in Fostoria, Seneca County. This listing has six images instead of the usual four. In the foreground are the NS main tracks, their diamonds crossing the CSX ex-C&O tracks are immediately to the left, just out of the picture. At the right, in the distance, is the signal bridge for the CSX ex-C&O main line tracks that control their crossing of the CSX ex-B&O main tracks off to the right.

Back in the day, the New York Central's ex-T&OC tracks also crossed everybody here. You can see where the old right-of-way went through when you stand there in person.

---

Thanks for the pics, Zars. Naturally, they prompt a query from the all-curious one: is the turnout on pic one part of NS bypassingthe streets of Erie?

Thanx in advance. --Billio

The connection track at Vermilion,Ohio has nothing to do with the Erie bypass, as it is about 132 miles west of Erie. This is about bypassing the 27 street crossings of Lakewood, a densely-populated suburb west of Cleveland. The Erie project is all pretty-well self- contained in the Erie area, from Cascade (mp 91) to Ash Street (mp 87).

Wasn't that first picture taken from the gauge side of the rail?? i.e. standing in the middle of the track with someone's back to a posible train? safety anyone???

The photographs were probably taken by staff members, or contract photographers, of the Ohio Rail Development Commission. Clearly, the railroad knew they were there; and I suppose a railroad officer or other employee accompanied the photographers that was in radio contact with dispatchers and crews for safety. Wish it were so with us railfans...

I have seen DOT working on such lists for at grade and seperated grade crossings. While doing some maintaining on a crossing, I had DOT pull up and take some pictures of one of my crossings and jogged down a couple of notes. Being curious about why DOT would be interested in one of my crossings, I started BSing with him only to find out that he was just working on one of these lists. They do this inventory every so often and it also gives them the backing to justify the amount of state money given to railroads for maintaining them. Each crossing has a "unit count" that depends on how many flashing lights, gates, etc. that it has. Each unit is worth X amount of dollars each year and most railroads like to try and pad this number to get more money from the state each year and DOT tends to use this inventory to keep them in check.

Later,
Xingman
<a href="http://home.internetcds.com/~xingman/&quot;&gt;Xingman's Web Pages