I was just wondering if the CSX mainline (O & M subdivision) from St. Louis to Cincinnati is still active, especially from Mitchell, IN on east to Cincy. After all the blogs I’ve been hearing about CSX trying to abandon or sell off some of the line, I’m not sure so if anyone could answer my question as best as possible, awesome.
Thank you,
Chad
The local that is stationed in Mitchell runs a local when needed to Seymour. There are the occational, once every 2 or 3 months, run throughs from St. Louis to Cincinnati. There are 3 scheduled daily autorack trains running from Cincinnati to Seymour. There the CSX trains head south on the L&I to Louisville. CSX has trackage rights from Louisville to Indianapolis. They only use the rights from Seymour south to Louisville. Some days there are more than 3 trains running between Cincinnati and Louisville. Depends on how busy the LCL is between Cincinnati and Louisville. Hopefully CSX continues to see the importance of this line staying intact from Ciny to St. Louis.
There was some big inspection train that ran from St. Louis to Cincinnati, and on to Crestline Ohio a few months ago. Prior to this inspection, the MOW people were busy cleanning the line of old ties, that were stacked here and there along the ROW. Unused pole lines removed. Strainge things were happening. Reportedly UP officails were on board. Rumor mill has been buzzing. Have heard of everthing from Powder River Coal, haulage agreements with western carriers, to bypass congested Chicago and Memphis Gateways. It’s anybodys guess what will happen to this line. For now it continues to evade the Grim Reaper.
Thank God that stretch of the St. Louis-Cincy is still active, seriously. For some time I thought it would either (a) go to the dogs, that is to say, get tore up & abandoned from North Vernon, IN on east (a common example of poor decision making on the part of CSX in times past), (b) become a shortline under a new name & gain far less traffic than it’s presently getting, or (c) become a new part of the Union Pacific system (from all this hullabaloo on UP checking out the line). But thankfully CSX is making a good call by keeping this part of the O & M subdivision open without a doubt.
By the same token, CSX has some free rein on the L & I from Seymour on south to Louisville, which I feel is freeing up traffic which usually would go due east to Cincy.
Anyways, thanks for notifying me on this issue. If anyone else has any breaking news on this stretch of CSX from St. Louis to Cincinnati, feel free to notify me on it.
OK, I’ll bite.
Looking at a map - it makes no sense to run eastward to Seymour, cut south to Louisville and then east to Cincy, when they could just go straight east to Cincy out of Seymour. Am I missing something here?
Also, that line has a great tunnel on it at Tunnelton, Indiana. Built for the 6-foot gauge O&M and it is long and curves.
Presently there are no scheduled trains to run eastbound to Seymour. The only eastbound traffic runs from Washington IN to Mitchell IN. Then south on the old Monon to Louisville. The only traffic running between Cincinnati and Seymour is 3 westbound autorack trains that run in the wee hours in the morning. They then run South on the Louisville & Indianapolis RR. (L&I) to Louisville, via trackage rights. These were trains that normally ran between Cincinnati and Louisville on the old L&N (LCL) sub. The LCL is getting very busy, I think it has reached it’s capacity. The Indiana Sub is it’s relief valve.
The old Monon route from Mitchell to Louisville is rumored to be up for sale in the near future (rumor has it). I’m hearing that those CSX trains that are presently using that route would be using the L&I to Seymour then head west to Washington IN, reverse for eastbounds. So everything for the most part that is run over the CSX Indiana Sub runs to Louisville.
Wish I could find those old photos of that tunnel near Tunnelton IN. They were of some maintenance crews working on it. They were from the 1930’ or 40’s. Some nice inside/outside shots. Had some of Big Tunnel, also from the 30’s or 40’s. My father gave them to me 25+ years ago.
What is the condition of the trackage from Cincinnati west?
I would assume it is in pretty good shape to Seymour, then starts getting worse towards Mitchell. In Southern Illinois, the line looks ok, but nothing great. Back in the 70’s it was 60mph for freights.
ed
The line west of Cincinnati is in fair shape. It does have a 25mph speed limit. CSX is not doing much as far as trackwork. Their going to need to do a substancial amount of tie work to get it back to the way it was just 8 to 10 years ago. I can still remember pacing along River Road, here in Cincinnati, not to long ago those double stack trains. I was risking a speeding ticket in doing so. They were hitting speeds of 50 to 55mph.