As many of you know I am really interested in Conrail. I currently am not able to find a lot of time to visit this forum, but I have noticed that some members are located in former Conrail territory. I have a deep interest in Conrail all the way from the April 1, 1976 merger all the way to the 1998 Control Date by NS and CSX. I currently have even ordered some books about Conrail and have printed several pages of information about Conrail. I do not live by a former Conrail line. I live by a former Southern Railway line so I never really had the opportunity to experience Conrail before NS and CSX purchased Conrail in 1998. I can say that I now see several Conrail (NS) locomotives and cars through here. What I would like is if some of you members who live near former Conrail right of ways could give me some detailed information about Conrail and what it was like when Conrail existed as a major freight carrier. I would appreciatte your replys. Post some pictures to if you want to.
There are a lot of good books and videos out there on Conrail.
For videos Big E has several good videos giving insights into operations in the later years
*** Eisfeller’s website is here
http://www.trainvideos.com
Steve Neff’s Neff Video Productions must have 20 - 30 DVDs covering most of Conrail he doesn’t have a website but he can be reaching here for a catalog.
Neff Video Productions
21 E. Hebble Ave.
Fairborn, OH 45324-5012
For books I can recommend
Conrail Commodities by Jeremy Taylor
Silver Brook Junction Publishing
Also there are two Historical Societies devoted to Conrail
http://www.trainweb.org/crts/main.html
http://www.conrailcorp.com/crhs.html
I grew up in Southern Illinois, not far from you and in the 70’s I would go to Effingham from time to time.
When Conrail began, it was pretty much a mess. there had been no money for several years and the track and assets were not in very good condition. Lots of effort went into rationalizing the plant. In your area, there were two lines from Indy to St. Louis, the one thru Effingham, the other thru Mattoon. The Mattoon line was abandoned.
There was a line that ran from Chicago (actually Hammond to Cairo) down thru Lawrenceville and Carmi…gone, except for some to Southern.
Lots of mainlines went away and what was left was pretty much rebuilt into super railroads. The railroad went from a lot of 10mph track to either no track or 60mph track. They established a pretty high standard for service in the East, particularly on intermodal.
gotta run, hope this helps get the thread going, i will be back.
ed
conrail cyclopedia also has good information…
Green Frog Productions has several videos of Conrail produced back in the mid 1990’s…A few cover the Pennsylvania area…Conrail-The West Slope’ covers between Johnstown and Tunnelhill…Conrail-Middle Division covers between Horseshoe Curve and Enola Yard for example…Big E productions did a 2 tape series on 24 hours at Horseshoe Curve, which covers the area between Altoona and South Fork…Trains Mag produced an ‘On Location Video’ back in 1996 that covered the Horseshoe Curve area between Altoona and Johnstown,Pa.