Eastern Railroad Discussion > How NS Routes Traffic in Northern Ohio

Since the Conrail split, how does NS route their trains from the old PRR and legacy N&W and Southern lines in Northern Ohio?  Does most of the traffic from the PRR mainline run up to Cleveland then west of the Water Level Route to Elkhart or is some of that routed on to the NKP via Bellevue? For overflow traffic, does NS still use the Fort Wayne line bypassing both the NYC and NKP?  A somewhat historical question, would NS benefit if the PRR's Panhandle Line was still in service between Columbus and Chicago via Logansport avoiding northern Ohio and Indiana all together except for entry into Chicago?   

It varies depending on traffic classification and endpoint.

-Chicago to mid Atlantic intermodals (NJ down to Baltimore) run NYC-cleveland-PRR Cleveland line as do some freight trains heading to or from Conway. Trains for points north of NJ use the NKP beyond Cleveland and can transition over at a couple different points IIRC.
-A fair amount of other freight traffic, including most carload freight coming off the N&W, gets classed at Bellevue and moves over the NKP east back to the NYC (at Vermillion IIRC) before taking the PRR east to conway if it is going east or via Oak Harbor going west.
-The PRR Ft wayne Line handles a few unit tank trains, an occasional frac sand train, and sometimes a freight over most of its length. It picks up some other traffic coming from Columbus and Cincy along the way (at Bucyrus IIRC) that wants to move east towards Conway.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/18 10:22 by DJ-12.