Napoleon, Defiance & Western News has…

Been pretty darned slim. Are their efforts at rebuilding the infrastructure paying off? New investments? Power?

Over the summer they laid three new tracks in the yard at Defiance. Derailments still happen, but overall the property is in much better shape now than at acquisition. A few weeks ago they added a GP20u, still in Santa Fe blue/yellow colors. Not sure if this is additional power, or a replacement for something that is leaving the property. Inbound tomato paste is still the dominant commodity carried. Interchange with CSX at Defiance and NS at Woodburn. For some time they seemed to have moved more towards the latter, although recently interchange at Defiance has been more busy.

Hope this helps.

A Scott Taipale special showing the yard mid-rebuild, and the aforementioned ex-SF GP-20:

“The railroad has abandoned the track east of Rt 24 to Liberty Center and the rails have been pulled. ODOT never built an overpass and after a fatality at the crossing the state of Ohio paid them to cut service east of the highway. Those funds were used to relocate the transload from Liberty Center to Napoleon. Also they are now financially able to do a full rebuild of the railyard in Defiance. These videos taken 10/24, 10/25/19 show that rebuild mid process.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOOO4yHjNC8

From what I can see they hadn't been to Liberty Center in ages, a diamond crossing of a north-south rail line shows as removed in Google Maps views. A large elevator and a plastics company were the customers there.

In MAW days the largest customer in Liberty Center was the elevator. They opted to build a facility in Hamler. ND&W ran to LC occasionally to serve a transload customer. I believe the commodity was firebrick carried in gondolas, either coming from or going to the steel mill in Delta. In the last year or so of operations to LC the diamond with I&O was removed, but they would re-install it temporarily when ND&W needed to make a run to LC. After completing the run they would remove the diamond and set it aside again until next time. The trans load site has moved to Napoleon.Track to LC was removed at the grade crossings but I believe was left intact elsewhere. That was per the agreement with the state of Ohio, as I recall.

Here’s a vid Mr Taipale that shows a fair bit of the line. It’s obvious that track conditions are much improved. Further, the NDW, state guv, and feds are ponying up roughly $8.25 million.

The booty includes 29,000 ties and 10 miles of rail.

https://www.progressiverailroading.com/ ... ine--61624

Here’s some recent footage of the NDW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tHOanLxt5o

A multi-million dollar rebuild program was expected to take place this year, including miles of rail, ballast, and surfacing. Has this happened? T’would be funny if people lost interest with NDW relinquished its crown as the railroad with the “world’s worst track”.

136 lb. rail in 79 foot sections was recently delivered to the ND&W for the referenced project.

Thanks.