Eastern Railroad Discussion > Ann Arbor RR and Hallett Tower (Toledo, OH) Questions

Good Evening:

Besides the CSXT crossing of the Ann Arbor Railroad Mainline, what other diamonds did Hallett Tower control? An earlier post said the Ann Arbor/CSXT main will now be an automatic crossing. Are other diamonds be converted as well?

I once saw a PRR position light signal in the area of Hallett Tower several years ago. Did PRR go by it at one time?

Lastly, (not a Hallett question) how does NS get to the Ann Arbor in the Toledo area to interchange traffic?

Thank you in advance.

The only diamonds at Hallett interlocking that I know of were those where the AA mains crossed the Toledo Terminal. I don't know if the TT crossing the AA was once double track; it's been single for a long time. If there were other diamonds at that junction they've been gone for decades.

To my knowledge, the only other physical plant controlled from Hallett was the power switch at the north end of Samaria Siding. I suspect that's a hand-thrown switch now but I haven't been up to look. The south end of the siding had a spring switch.

What is now the CSX main was TT to the south of Hallett and Pere Marquette to the north. The TT's main arced toward the west at Hallett onto what became known as the "Back Side". Up until 2000 this track ran all the way around the west side of Toledo to reach the ex-Wabash at Gould, but most of that track became redundant when NS got its share of Conrail, which provided a more direct way to get to Maumee via the Conrail bridge over the Maumee River. The TT is now gone west of where the switch was for the lead into AA's ex-DT&I Temperance Yard near the GM (General Motors) and GM (General Mills) plants.

The Pennsy's route through Toledo to Detroit used the AA on the north side of Toledo and then trackage rights over the Pere Marquette from Alexis Tower to Carleton. I'm not conversant enough to go into deep detail, but suffice it to say that the PRR had ownership stakes in the AA for much of the latter's history, and the PRR signalling at Hallett was a lingering consequence of that.

NS trains normally use the Toledo Terminal "Back Side" between CP-K and Hallett to reach the AA for interchange, but sometimes they run to/from Alexis for this purpose. There have been a couple of occasions when an AA engine was either added or dropped at Alexis on one end of a train to facilitate a reverse move there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/19 18:29 by toledopatch.