Abingdon Update

[NW Mailing List]

No, it was not - it was Pennsy from Columbus to Sandusky (trivia: the interlocking where this line crossed the PRR Pittsburgh to Chicago main line was called COLSAN as it’s where the main crossed the COLumbus to SANdusky line). But it was part of the Scioto Division (Williamson to Columbus and Cincinnati) and Eastern Region (all the original N&W and VGN lines and no ex-Nickel Plate or Wabash) so to the extent that the N&W,  NKP, and Wabash still lived on culturally, it was more N&W than anything else (but still on PRR contracts).

At the time N&W took purchased it from PRR, it was under PRR’s Manual Block System (which as I understand it, was different from most railroad manual block rules). N&W added CTC sometime after the purchase in 1964. At my time there (1980-81), Columbus to Bellevue was controlled by a Scioto Division dispatcher in Portsmouth but Bellevue to Sandusky was a sub-panel in Bellevue Tower. The physical tower was closed in 1980 or 81 and the functions moved to a yardmaster’s tower within Bellevue Yard.

More trivia: Bellevue Tower had the job of giving clearance cards and orders to Scioto Division train heading to Columbus. When the tower closed, trains originating Bellevue got them from the yard office in Bellevue. But for trains originating Sandusky picking up their power in Sandusky, that wasn’t possible. Since Sandusky didn’t have an operator, the N&W tried faxing the clearance card and orders (on 6 minutes per page early fax machines!) since they decided that method did not require an operator since no read back to the Dispatcher was needed. It being 37 years ago, I’m sure any grievances over whether that was contract-legal have long been settled.

Still more trivia: Bellevue Tower dates back to when the Nickel Plate and PRR were totally separate and there was no reason a train coming from Columbus would head into Bellevue yard or v.v. So even in 1981, moves between the NKP and the PRR former lines could never get better than Restricting since the tower had never been wired to pass block status from one railroad to the other.

Even more trivia: Old railroad names never die: with the merger, there was a need for trains to be able to go either from Columbus or Ft. Wayne on to the Wheeling and Lake Erie heading east. The W&LE crossed the NKP and PRR at Bellevue. Originally, there was also the NYC’s Norwalk branch running parallel to the W&LE and also crossing the NKP and PRR at Bellevue. The connecting track that was built used about a mile of that old NYC branch. Even in 1981, it was called the “Lake Shore Connection” as that part of the NYC was originally the LAKE SHORE & Michigan Southern. And back to Bellevue Tower, it was never updated to remove that NYC branch from the interlocking logic so long after the track was gone, the home signals were still there displaying Stop to trains that could never come just to keep the interlocking happy.

-- 
Larry Stone
lstone19 at stonejongleux.com





> On Nov 2, 2018, at 3:05 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> On 11/2/2018 10:59 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> 
>> when we discovered one night that the non-gold-plated CTC between Bellevue and Sandusky
> 
> Larry,
>     Correct me if I am wrong, this was not originally N&W property was it?
> 
> Jimmy Lisle
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