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  • Railroads of "Winesburg," Ohio

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in the American Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas. For questions specific to a railroad company, please seek the appropriate forum.
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in the American Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas. For questions specific to a railroad company, please seek the appropriate forum.

Moderator: railohio

 #263450  by Paul1705
 
I am referring to Sherwood Anderson's hometown of Clyde, which seems to be one of the models for the fictional town in his novel.

A 1968 atlas shows two New York Central routes and one Norfolk and Western line passing through Clyde. The NYC Sandusky to Kenton line (Big Four in the 1890s?) might be the equivalent of the railroad described in the novel.

The Windows Live Local map now shows all three lines as being gone. Is it true that all of these routes are abandoned?

 #263694  by BaltOhio
 
The two NYC lines were the onetime Big Four (originally Mad River & Lake Erie) from Sandusky to Springfield, and the so-called Norwalk Branch between Elyria and Toledo. The latter was the original LS&MS Cleveland-Toledo main line. Both were strictly local operations in Anderson's time. What shows as the N&W line was originally the Wheeling & Lake Erie's main line running SE from Toledo to the Ohio River. Last I heard, this line was still intact, although I'm not sure of the ownership -- maybe NS, maybe W&LE(II).

Between 1900 and 1938 and Lake Shore Electric's Cleveland-Toledo main line also passed through Clyde, running alongside present US Rt. 20.

 #263836  by nycrick
 
The old W&LE line is still owned by NS and it's still in service. Although it doesn't have as much traffic as it did before NS took over the Airline Route from CR. W&LE (II) has trackage rights to Toledo & I think they run 1-2 trains/day.

 #264004  by Paul1705
 
Thanks for the information.

A problem is that on-line maps (Google, Windows Local Live, etc.) are not particularly trustworthy when it comes to railroads. For one thing, company names are never shown.

However, I see that the Wheeling and Lake Erie corporate web site has a fairly good system map. It shows them having trackage rights from Toledo to Bellevue, and passing through Clyde - although the latter town is not specified on their map.

 #264375  by chessie8212
 
nycrick wrote:The old W&LE line is still owned by NS and it's still in service. Although it doesn't have as much traffic as it did before NS took over the Airline Route from CR. W&LE (II) has trackage rights to Toledo & I think they run 1-2 trains/day.
WLE does indeed run 1-2 trains per day on the line. Usually a morning and afternoon run.

I grew up in Fremont, OH on this same line and I'd have to say that traffic has increased since NS acquired it's share of CR. The mainstay of that line when I was a kid was coal, and that was the bulk of what one saw. Trains didn't run nearly as often then. I noticed many more train horns during my middle/high school years (after the CR split).

Now, trains are anything from autoracks to double stacks (a project to lower trackage underneath the former NKP bridge in Fremont several summers ago allowed this to become an everyday occurance) and with the opening of the new intermodal facility in Columbus, I'd expect this line to become a rather busy intermodal route from the Water Level Route to Columbus via Bellevue.

I cannot speak for the train counts between Bellevue and Lorain, but I believe that there is much less traffic there than on the Bellevue/Oak Harbor half of the line.

 #269423  by Lew
 
In Anderson's time in Clyde, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern would have been quite a going concern, we would be talking circa 1900 or thereabouts, his biography shows him leaving Clyde for Chicago at the age of 17.

Read some other stories of his that coal traffic figured heavily in, people hopping coal trains, throwing coal off, one coal train after another. I thought he was most likely using the Wheeling for reference.
 #277686  by dave_van
 
1 or 2 trains a day on the old WLE, I don't think so. Sense the NS/Conrail connection in Oak Harbor went into service we are now talking multi trains hourly on average. General freight, stacks, TOFC and a WLE train both ways using its trackage rights to Toledo. Power is about anything you could dream up. I think the dispatchers are setting up directional running as EB's come in groups then WB in groups.
 #278060  by Lew
 
dave_van wrote:1 or 2 trains a day on the old WLE, I don't think so. Sense the NS/Conrail connection in Oak Harbor went into service we are now talking multi trains hourly on average. General freight, stacks, TOFC and a WLE train both ways using its trackage rights to Toledo. Power is about anything you could dream up. I think the dispatchers are setting up directional running as EB's come in groups then WB in groups.
Actually, do you know there were only one or two trains a day on the Wheeling in 1900? I don't know that, eastern Ohio coal would have been a going concern then, headed for the Toledo docks, I find it quite possible that there was a lot of coal traffic on the Wheeling in 1900, going through Clyde, Ohio.