PRR and Erie on Their Former Western Ends

My experience with the PRR between Chicago and Pittsburgh is a bit dated, but when I was riding the Broadway Limited back and forth to college from 1987 to 1992 the former PRR "Broadway" was no longer broad.  Down to two tracks and not a smooth ride.

Conrail made the decision to downgrade the a portion of line through Indiana and Ohio around 1990 as I recall and Amtrak moved the Broadway Limited and the Capital Limited to the former B&O route across those states.  The Fort Wayne station I used to pick the train up at was moved to Waterloo, Indiana and wasn't anything more than an Am-shack.  This action brought passenger service back to Akron and Youngstown, Ohio at the expense of the likes of Crestline and Canton.  The Broadway limited was completely eliminated in 1995 and the Lakeshore Limited became the only through service between NYC and Chicago on Amtrak.

I honestly don't recall if Conrail ended up abandoning the section of trackage or if it simply downgraded it.  Wish I knew more about the current status as that is going back a bit now.

If you want to railfan a very active section of western sections of eastern roads, the NYC route from Chicago through Ohio is extremely busy with Amtrak's Lakeshore Limited and the Capitol Limited on what is now also a very busy NS E-W corridor.

I also rode the Broadway Limited between Pittsburgh and Chicago round trip over a weekend in 1982 to see a girl friend in Valparaiso, Indiana.  The ride was pretty poor with lots of low speed segments and bad track.  I don't recall the details.  She was worth the trip, though. 

George

I think the PRR west of Alliance, Ohio is gone in places.    I think some of it run by a shortline that I think is called the Chicagoe and Ft Wayne RR.    They do run as far as Lima Ohio.     

The western lines of the PRR across ohio to St louis is also gone in places and a shortline in others.    There is some NS activity along the old Bayard Cutoff from Rochester Jct.  

The old main is still in use from Conway through Rochester Jct and up the Beaver Valley to Homewood and then west to Alliance is still a heavy duty double NS mainline.    At Alliance NS goes straight north on what was previsously a secondary line.

As for the Broadway, I don't think the PRR was 4 tracks West of about New Brighton PA, just west of Conway.   I attended a PRRT&HS convention a few years back and one of the presentations was WWII traffic past a tower in Indiana or OHio on the FT Wayne Mainline.    All the discussion, photos, and diagrams in presentation I remember was double track.     But it was very busy and fast track.   I think based on the count for 24 hours on the selected day, there was a train by about every 15 minutes!     But I think the 4 track main ended at New Brighton west of Conway where two lines split off and went up the east side of the Beaver River toward Nes Castle and two other tracks crossed the river and climbed the west side of the Beaver Valley to Homewood and then turned west toward Alliance.   The two track to Alliance are still there and the NS main.    The line up the east side of the river is also there but is now single track.

East and west from Fort Wayne, the PRR had always been double track until the 70's. Now it's just a single track line. Conrail decided in the 80's that they didn't want to maintain the line to passenger standards, so in the early 90's Amtrak left and started using the old water level NYC route. This line is all jointed rail and had a 69 MPH speed limit.

The Erie around here has been gone since the early 80's. The only section I knew of that had been in existence was a small 3 mile long section from an interchange with the NS to an oil refinery just southwest of North Manchester IN. Not sure if that even is in service these days. The interchange was known as Bolivar and I think there used to be a tower there.

I think most of the Erie in western Ohio was scrapped after the Conrail takeover.  There is still a short segment west of Lima to the village of Glenmore in Van Wert County.  It was originally operated by the Spencerville & Elgin RR.  Now operated by RJ Corman.

The PRR Ft. Wayne Line was originally supposed to be single tracked in the Penn Central merger.  Due to traffic volume and poor conditions on other lines, PC never carried out the plan.  Conrail eventually single tracked the line in the early 1980's.  I believe CSX owns the tracks but leases them to Chicago, Ft. Wayne and Eastern (CFE) a Genesee and Wyoming company.  NS has (or had) trackage rights over this line and used it to run oil trains. 

Please correct me if I am wrong with any of this information.

Tom

The PRR was single tracked across Indiana in the 1985-1986 time frame.  Amtrak left in 1990. Between about 1981 and 1990, there were no thru trains, just Amtrak and the locals. In the early 90's Conrail was set to abandon the line west of Warsaw.  The former Nickel Plate was swamped with trains at that time, so NS bought bought Warsaw-Chicago and got trackage rights from Warsaw east, and began running a lot of empties and drag freights that way to relieve the NKP.  When Conrail was split up, NS sold CSX their portion and CSX inherited the portion still owned  by Conrail to effectively give NS and CSX three main tracks across Indiana and western Ohio, although NS retained some trackage rights and continued to dispatch much of the line.  When CSX realized the recently re-double tracked B&O could handle all their needs, they leased the Crestline to Chicago portion to Rail America, who started the Chicago Fort Wayne & Eastern. Of course that is now G&W.  The CF&E has held its own, and is now busier than it has ever been, in fact the line sees more moves than it has since the Conrail split.

The Erie main line across Ohio is intact from the B&O connection at Lima, west to about a half mile west of Elgin OH.  I believe CSX uses the first half mile to serve part of the Husky Refinery complex in Lima. RJ Corman operates the rest and serves a plastics plant in Spencerville and an elevator at Elgin.  The last half mile is used for car storage.  Most of one of the mains have been torn out, making it single track with a few sidings. As of yesterday, the sole motive power on the line was a single SW type switcher.  The line is then gone until you get to Decatur Indiana, where a very short segment connects the old Grand Rapids & Indiana line (PRR, now CF&E) to a siding into a plastics plant.  From there west, the next segment is a  mile or so of track re-laid on the old Erie right of way between the NS Marion Branch (ex NYC) at Bolivar and and an oil processing facility at Laketon.  The next segment is about a mile long in Rochester Indiana, running between the Elkhart & Western (ex NKP IMC line) and running west to the end of track near US 31.  This segment is used for car storage.  Previously a segment was intact between Monterey and North Judson, where it connected to CSX.  This section was privately owned by the elevator owner at Monterey.  This was later sold to the TP&W, who abandoned the line when the elevator stopped shipping in 2004.  The last mile or so in North Judson was turned over to the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum, and it still connects to the former CSX trackage(C&O)  there. From there to Chicago, there is nothing left that I am aware of.