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  • Sale of the Ft. Wayne Line to NS

  • Discussion related to the operations and equipment of Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail) from 1976 to its present operations as Conrail Shared Assets. Official web site can be found here: CONRAIL.COM.
Discussion related to the operations and equipment of Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail) from 1976 to its present operations as Conrail Shared Assets. Official web site can be found here: CONRAIL.COM.

Moderators: TAMR213, keeper1616

 #1232036  by Engineer Spike
 
I know that CR had shifted most of its traffic to the old NYC. Why didn't they just rip up the old PRR, or even shortline it? It seems strange that it would be sold to the top competitor. The NKP was roughly parallel anyway.
 #1232072  by charlie6017
 
I wonder if part of Conrail keeping that line had to do more with the PAX operations than anything. If
I remember right, Amtrak still ran the "Broadway" via Ft. Wayne until around 1990 or so and also there
was a shuttle between Valparaiso, IN and Chicago back and forth at least on the weekdays. It seems after
the Broadway was re-routed that's when CR downgraded the line and deactivated the signals, etc.

So that makes me assume CR was getting dollars elsewhere (AMTK, et al) to keep this line intact as
long as they did.

Charlie
 #1408529  by CPF363
 
Surprising that Conrail did not look to retain the Chicago-Logansport-Columbus line verses the Fort Wayne line as it is not as parallel to the NYC Water Level Route and would have kept Columbus more on a through line between Indianapolis and Pittsburgh with Buckeye Yard in the middle. This would have allowed traffic from Pittsburgh to run to St. Louis through Buckeye Yard then on to the Panhandle joining the Big Four at Union City instead of going through Cleveland.
 #1409867  by Matt Langworthy
 
Conrail was looking to reduce redundant trackage. Your scenario is interesting from a railfan's perspective, but CR was able to eliminate a good chunk of the Panhandle with the routing they chose.