Eastern Railroad Discussion > Another Rare West-Leg Connector Move - Lake Erie Land

Thursday July 3, 2025
Temps in the low 80's - Sunny

Ok, two days ago I mentioned there simply were not general freight train movements over the west-leg connector here on the west side of Vermilion that links the NKP to the Lake Shore Line. This connector was built circa 2017 and sees intermodal train 264 east about mid-night and several times / week intermodal 28B eastbound. Any westbound moves are rare, and any non-intermodal is all but non-existent. On Tuesday we had a super rare movement of Train 309 the East Binghamton, NY to Elkhart, IN train take it.  - see https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,6043369

Well out of the blue today we got a heads up something was going on with the 316, the regular NKP train that runs from Bellevue to Conneaut and on to East Binghamton. He's "in Sandusky" ??? What the ??

Indeed, 316 had left Bellevue and come north (west)  over the former PRR to Sandusky, then over the Lake Shore line (former New York Central) to CP 224 at Risden Road and then down the west-leg connector back to "home" rails on the NKP for the run to Conneaut and east. For the 2nd time in two days a general freight train is photographed on the connector. Go figure .....

1. Looking long to the west from Risden Road we spot 316's headlight and he's lined for the connector off Track 2.

2. The sun is at an ugly place for a shot here, but at least it is not dark ! Here comes 316 with NS 4021 and 1189 off Track 2 and onto the connector.

3 Arcing around the sweeping curve towards the NKP main.

 

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4. - 6.  Checking it out sweeping through the connector. A very odd sight.

 

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7. And there it goes onto the NKP and east ..... pretty cool !!!!

It's a tough shoot here for an eastbound,and the light wasn't the best, but worth getting out and catching.

Apparently the reason for this detour was maintenance-of-way was replacing the turnout at Kimball just outside of Bellevue where the single track to the east begins and the CWR gang is still out there between Vermilion and Bellevue.

 



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/25 15:06 by train1275.

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The NS rail gang was working between Shinrock and Hoover Road (the "Erie" siding switch).  When I drove by this afternoon; the crossings at Jeffries and Knight Roads were closed and being put together.  Barrows Road was open and the new rails had not seen a train yet.  The signal crew was putting things back together.

Thanks for the update!

Posted from Android

Thanks for sharing. It would be interesting to see a system map of all the connecting tracks btw the various NS lines delineated. Then there are the connecting tracks with foreign railroads for wreck detours. I would think that the dispatchers have that info charted somewhere.

Victor Baird

I remember when a friend was passing through Northeast Ohio back in the mid 1980s, I believe, and happened upon the aftermath of the large fill that washed out and collapsed on Conrail west of Erie, Pennsylvania, I seem to recall.  CR was out of business for several weeks, and CR and NS (N&W) built a crossover - was it at Conneaut? - so that CR trains could cross over and detour over the NS.  He had a photo of the crossover, and I remember that it was permanent enough that it had signals.  He also had a photo of the mostly rusted Conrail double-track main near the outage.  I also later read an article in one of the magazines that the Conrail Chicago Line outage also turned out to be the last hurrah for the former Erie Lackawanna main through Meadvlle, as CR had to detour a large number of trains over the EL as well.   

Prior to that, he said that in those early post-recession days, the old Nickel Plate to Buffalo was down to just three trains each way a day on its Buffalo line:  a pair of trains connecting to / from the D&H, a second pair continuing to / from St. Thomas, Ontario, and a third pair most likely serving Buffalo local business.  Rumors were being passed at the time that the fledgling Norfolk Southern was considering abandoning the line to Buffalo in favor of trackage rights over the parallel Conrail Chicago Line.  

Back to today and the West-Leg Connector.  In photo No. 2, the rail that the train is on looks a little more rusted than the Chicago Line's two main tracks, as though it doesn't get nearly the use, as train1275 indicates.  Curious what the speed limit is on the West-Leg Connector, although it appears to be a generous wide-sweeping curve.  

Jeff Gast
Greenwood, Indiana