ValleyX Akron, Ohio, was the last city of any size the Erie passed through going west. I've thought for years what a wonderful route with its clearances it could have been for today's intermodal service but it still had to go through Chicago.
Akron, Ohio, was the last city of any size the Erie passed through going west. I've thought for years what a wonderful route with its clearances it could have been for today's intermodal service but it still had to go through Chicago.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Why would you want Intermodal only?
I mean, I could see why you would not want some types of traffic--locals that might gum up the works, etc. But, did he really envision capacity to be so limited as to reject a Chicago - New York Manifest?
Gabe
John G. Kneiling once proposed in one of his columns an intermodal-only road between Chicago and New York/Boston comprised of EL, D&H and B&M.
George Hilton once commented that one of the leading wonders of the Erie was negative, it managed to get from New York to Chicago and miss almost every major traffic source. Except for northeastern Ohio, Erie had few large on-line traffic sources. Consequently, it became mostly an end-to-end carrier.
I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn last night, but I have been to Indiana....once. When we crossed the state line, and saw the "welcome to Indiana...." sign, my then girlfriend, now my wife, turned to me and said "What's a hoser"? I surely don't know much about the Erie, but I always had the impression it was basically a trunk line between the east coast ports and Chicago. As such, I figured that there wasn't much online business in between. Did the Erie just concentrate on traffic at both ends, and fly through the small towns in between?
It is said that in the early days of the A&GW, the track between Dayton and Cincinnati was dual gauge, so today's CSX Toledo Sub south of Dayton was once dual gauge (A&GW 6').
It seems to be rather murky as to when Erie crews quit operating on into Cincinnati from Dayton. It must have been some time ago. This was recently a topic on a Yahoo group, either Central Ohio or Western Ohio railfans, and no one seems to know or put a date to it. The traffic off the Erie was hauled to Cincinnati in B&O trains for many years, whether it stopped before the CH&D was swallowed up into the B&O hasn't been answered.
Gabe: Erie had acquired trackage rights over B&O predecessor Cincinnati Hamilton & Dayton (CH&D) about 1874 into Cincinnati and west out of Dayton on the Ohio & Mississippi RR to St. Louis (also B&O/CH&D controlled after 1893) thru lease of the Atlantic & Great Western. (it started as a a 6'-0" broad gage line)
Why the line & traffic pulled out of the Indy-St.L corridor by formation time of the E-L in 1960 isn't clear to me.
I was curious about where the old EL line crossed U.S. 31 in Indiana. I had always presumed Rochester, but the remains of the line there looked so meager that I had my doubts.
Anyway, after confirming taht Rochester was the main, I saw that the Erie reached Indianapolis from Cincinnati via Rushville and Connersville. There is, of course, still a line through Rushville and Connersville served by CSX. I had always presumed that this line was the old B&O Line, as my maps show the B&O serving Connersville and Rushville between Cincinnati and Indianapolis.
So confused. Any help?
I think it would have been neat to see and EL engine in Indy. Any idea when this service stopped?
Ah the call of fallen flags.
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