When was the major portion of this route abandoned and the justification? This prevents there from being competitive Baltimore to Cincinnati Intermodal service.
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It is very circuitous, there are many grades, I believe some segments are "darK" (no signals) and clearances are likely issues......I'm not sure the tracks are in place for the entire length....maybe someone else can shed some light on this...........
If your referring to the St Louis line west of Cumberland,md......it was downgraded in the early 1980's west of Grafton ,w va, with traffic diverted to the Pittsburgh line via sandpatch. It was a operational nightmare with the mountain grades...
Last scheduled freight ran 8/31/1985.
IMO, one of the best web historical sites dealing with this trackage is Dan Robie's
wvncrails.weebly.com.
Dan has compiled a complete tour of the "Parkersburg branch" from Clarksburg to the Ohio River.
Many photos and maps, very good historical text.
You can spend hours on this site, there are other West VA. RRs also covered, along with many other rail subjects.
I have seen other internet sites that deal with the OHIO portion of this trackage, such as the infamous Moonville tunnel.
2 other B&O authorities that have written about this trackage are Bob Withers and Jay Potter.
Does CSX ever run through trains through Grafton...Brooklyn Junction...etc...essentially accomplishing the same goal as the St. Louis Line?
Borden Tunnel. Thanks for the Dan Robie's wvncrails.weebly.com information.
Dennis
Beside a number of coal hauls, and of course empty hoppers, CSX runs two manifests daily on the old "west end", Q316 from Russell Kentucky to Cumberland and Q317 from Cumberland to Russell. They drop and pickup empties and loads both ways. I always called them "long distance locals". Since fracking began, there are sometimes extras, for hauling sand and chemicals.
At Keyser, several large coal hauls begin there and use the old interchange with the Western Maryland to take coal on the old Western Maryland track to Bayard, WVA, to the large power plant at Mt Storm WVA.
I would assume, hopefully correctly, that the western terminus of the "west end" is now Russell.
Ed
The National Gateway Project has probably been difficult enough on the Chicago Main. It would have been even tougher on the Parkersburg Sub.
http://www.cte.ncsu.edu/eeconf...nts/38-1_Brinker.pdf
