My Trip to Vickers Jct and Ashtabula

I spent some time recently in Ohio, railfanning at Vickers Junction and at Ashtabula, OH

Here are my pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15947776@N ... 202373829/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15947776@N ... 324260657/

Question for you folks: what is the heritage of the tracks at Vickers, and the north-south tracks just east of the Ashtabula Yard?

Thanks for sharing the photos.

At Vickers, the E/W trackage was the New York Central / Penn Central / Conrail mainline Buffalo / Chicago. The N/S trackage was Toledo Terminal which originally formed a 360-degree belt around Toledo and could be used by any connecting road. Used to be 4 tracks crossing 2 tracks.

At Ashtabula, the junction was OD (Ore Dock) Tower. E/W trackage was the Buffalo / Chicago NYC mainline. N/S was 2 tracks Pennsy (Pittsburgh Youngstown & Ashtabuila RR) and 2 tracks NYC Youngstown / Ashtabula Harbor. Old layout was 4 tracks crossing 4 tracks; NYC had connections in each quadrant with the SW being double-tracked. PRR & NYC were adjacent going to the Harbor; PRR docks were on the west side of the river and NYC crossed to the east side.

PRR roundhouse is part of the junkyard in the NW quadrant.

Going south, PRR and NYC separated at the NKP xg.

Thanks for the info! I'm a little confused/surprised by this:

At Vickers, the E/W trackage was the New York Central / Penn Central / Conrail mainline Buffalo / Chicago.

So, the old New York Central mainline from Buffalo to Chicago went through Vickers on the E/W trackage, but the present CSX mainline from Buffalo to Chicago does not go through Vickers?

Also, are there any good railroad maps of Ohio on the Internet?

As part of the Conrail split in 1999, NS received the former NYC mainline from Cleveland (DB Tower, Bridge #1) lakefront westward via Berea, Toledo, and Elkhart. CSX mainline runs westward from Cleveland (Collinwood Yard) via the Cleveland Short Line / Berea / Greenwhich / old B&O mainline via Garret.

CSX owns Collinwood to Bridge #1 but it is now a single-track branch used only by Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited and local freights. Amtrak's Capitol Limited uses it for a short distance to access the Cleveland Station.

If you think of the circa-1995 Conrail as a big, sideways X, with one leg connecting Chicago with New York via central Pennsylvania, and the other leg connecting St. Louis with Boston and New York, via upstate NY, basically in the split CSX got the St. Louis-Boston legs and NS the NYC-Chicago legs. That's why the change in traffic patterns.

dj_paige wrote:Also, are there any good railroad maps of Ohio on the Internet?

"Good" or not this is the official map from the Ohio Department of Transportation:

Ohio Rail Map & Rail Tourism Guide