Let's see, as someone who lives about 5 miles from Negley and has followed the line for the last couple of years, I will try and answer your questions.
First off, the CQPA was a subsidy of the Arkansas shortline, Dardanelle & Russellville. When the Port authority bought the line back in 2000, the D&R was the winning bidder and started operating the line as the CQPA.
As traffic started to build, the CQPA was able to use the state of Ohio money to replace many ties on the line. They built a new siding in Negley to unload construction debris and they also started to unload the same stuff on the old wye at Signal, which is just west of Rogers.
The CQPA started out with one ex-CN GMD1, from the D&R and soon after starting operations, another ex-CN GMD1 came up from the D&R. Later the CQPA purchased 5 ex-FEC GP9's.
As traffic started to build, the road started to have problems with derailments. Which is not surprising, as the track had sat dead for over 5 years.
Also, from personal observations, the CQPA had lots of trouble keeping the Geeps running. It seemed they couldn't keep more then 2 running at one time. One of the Geeps has never run and has sat at the old Y&S Negley shops, as a parts supply.
In 2004, the road suffered a couple of costly derailments, which caused it to default on an almost half million dollar loan from the Port Authority. This forced the CQPA into bankruptcy in the summer of 2004.
The Port Authority, in trying to recoupt some of it's money, decided to try and bring in a new operator, which is how the OC entered the picture. Way back in 1995 and 1996, the OC leased the line and operated it as the OH & PA. After the CQPA came in and started to haul the trash, the OC has wanted it back. I won't try and cover what happened between 1996 and 2000, as that is a story all to itself!
In the middle of Dec. 2004, the CQPA finally quit and the OC took over. This happened around the middle of the month. But, before the OC decided to run any trains, they decided to fix up the track. For the last, almost 2 months, the OC has been very busy replacing ties on the entire line. Something along the lines of 25,000 ties! With more to come. The OC has plans to get the track up to FRA Class 2 status sometime in the future.
With the tracks finally starting to get into shape, the OC is just about ready to start running trains. Sometime this week, the OC delivered its first trash cars to the unloader at Signal.
I hope this gives some idea of what is happening. What Railpace didn't make clear was, when the CQPA shut down in Dec., CSX still had many trash cars on the way to the CQPA and just kept delivering to the CQPA/OH&PA interchange at the old P&LE Gateway yard. Since the cars were destined for both Signal and Negley and the OC wasn't running down there yet, the cars built up fast. I'm not sure how many cars where sitting there, but it sure seemed like about 150 or 200 cars! With so many cars, I think the OC was forced to unload some of them on their other lines in the Youngstown area, until the OH&PA can get started.
From my understanding, there are big plans for the line. Today, in Negley, there were 5 car loads of ballast. The plan is to build another track at the unloader, so they can unload more cars. From the looks of things, that has started to happen. I also understand, they want to run two trains a day, one south out of Youngstown and one north out of Darlington. The trains would meet at Signal and swap trains. Pretty amazing stuff for a line that was left for dead.
I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, I will try to answer them. Thanks
