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What Railroad owned the line, (when it was in operation), that goes passed the old Geauga Lake Amusement Park, now Wild Water Kingdom, in Aurora Ohio and Will this line ever get to see train traffic again on it? I do know right now that the tracks are still there and NS owns this line right now, but the tracks are covered with weeds and trees and some places trees growing in between the ties, but the rails, (to me), are still in good shape for a line I believe hasn’t seen a train on it since the 1940’s and 1950’s.
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Also, Will Geauga County ever have a train running through it again sometime just like it did back in the 1980’s through Chardon Ohio and Middlefield Ohio? I do know the B&O owned this line, but again will Geauga County anywhere ever see a train through it again?
The line you are referring to is the former Erie RR Cleveland-Leavittsburg line. It dates back to the 1860’s and over it traveled the oil from Pennsylvania that turned John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil into famous names. It lasted into the late 1970’s or early 1980’s.
Never is a long, long time but I bet if rail transportation ever returns to Geauga County it won’t be in my lifetime or yours.
Conrail made the line stub during its tenure. NS got it, unchanged, as “PRR” line 1(u) in the STB docket in 1997 (Nantua to Cleveland Terminal). It is not on NS’s radar as an immediate future abandonment candidate (next 3 years out, per SDM-290(0) et al), per the system filing with STB.
Tom,
My dad grew up (for the most part) in Aurora. That line (former Erie, EL and Conrail) used to be heavy with traffic back in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Even into the early 1970’s it saw quite a bit of action. Then when Conrail started abandoning thousands of miles of track (much of the former Erie Railroad), this line was stub-ended and abandoned.
In 1999, it was passed over to Norfolk Southern ownership. They only used it as far as Solon. A local (I forget the symbol) would traverse the line, hitting every industry necessary along the way. I believe it ran tri-weekly. My engineer pal Dave Mangold got stuck running that job from time to time.
In 2009, this line, now known as the “Randall Secondary,” was supposedly leased to the Cleveland Commercial Railroad. I believe the lease only lasted 1 year, but it’s entirely possible that the CCR bought the line. For power, the Cleveland Commercial uses an LTEX EMD SW1500 (ex-UP) and an LTEX EMD GP15-1 (ex-NS).
East of Solon, I highly doubt that the line will ever see use again. Beyond Chamberlain Road (between Mantua and Aurora), the line dead-ends. East from Mantua, the former track right-of-way has been turned into a hiking and biking trail. I do NOT see a resurrection of this line. At least not any time in the near future.
As for the former B&O line that used to pass through Chardon - no, it will never exist again. I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s true. A need for a rail-line there is unnecessary. It would cost a lot of money to build, and for what? Nothing. There are no industries between the Warren area (where the line still exists, and is used once in a blue moon [by the Warren & Trumbull RR - an Ohio Central subsidiary] for serving industries) and Painesville. All of the industries in Painesville can already easily be accessed by CSX and NS.
Also - same story with this line too. Just south of Painesville, it’s been turned into a hiking and biking trail. Definitely no plans in t
If the Erie-Lackawanna Mahoning Division First Subdivision is ever reactivated between the Solon Nestle plant east to the Mahoning Valley, it will likely be in stages. The last through train was in 1980 – a daily mixed freight from North Randall to Brier Hill and then on to Conway Yard. Locals ran out to the Carlon Cement Plant at Chamberlain Road in Mantua Township until 1993. Now the line is out of service east of the Nestle plant at Harper Road in Solon. Large sections of track were removed in 1982 – the section from Mantua Township to Girard. The Second Subdivision remains intact but mostly unused through Leavittsburg-SN and North Warren, plus a section operated by GW as an industrial in Niles. Not only was Mantua Township to Leavittsburg section removed, but the property was sold, and all bridges were since taken out.
As for a possible reactivation, fortunately the Ohio Central acquired the Erie right of way from Leavittsburg east to Brier Hill for future restoration. One exception is the driveway for a small office building off Pine Avenue in Warren. Also, two structures were built on the right of way in Garrettsville (a light industry and an IGA grocery store) plus a bike path. But the bike path could be a Godsend in terms of preservation. Surprisingly much of this line is still intact after 30 years of disuse.
What could lead to its re-use? If you look at satellite maps, there are a large number of sand quarries along this line. In fact, Portage County produces the most sand in Northern Ohio (thanks to glacial deposits), and most of those quarries are next to the rail line. One new sand quarry was just opened at the east end of Aurora by demolishing a new development of mcmansions. All these new natural gas wells in the Marcellus basin (second-largest gas field in the world!) below NY, PA, WV and parts of eastern Ohio need large amounts of sand for fracking (drilling) the shale. That would seem a decent customer base for partial restor
First - [#welcome] And thanks for an unusually well-informed and factually-detailed post, even as to the portions that are necessarily speculation as to the future.
Now, from the “Man bites dog” dept. [emphasis added - PDN] -
That’s just too funny. [(-D] Can you provide any further details or references, such as the name of the neighborhood/ development, the approx. dates, the name of the quarry, and whether or not this has ever gotten any attention in the media, even if only locally ?
Hi Paul, the quarry is Bluestone Sand & Gravel off Mennonite Road, just east of Frost Road, in Mantua Township. It is next to another quarry that’s been built on the E-L right of way – Solon EXC Sand & Gravel. Fortunately this latter quarry hasn’t excavated the railroad right of way! The housing development eradicated by the first quarry was Bluestone Lakes. It was a small development with two streets – Bluestone Lakes Drive and Morningside Drive. There were five large houses built on Bluestone Lakes Drive and none yet on Morningside Drive. I don’t know specific development timings except the housing development is visible on the satellite map at Google and it’s been eradicated by the time the satellite picture for Bing was taken. So we’re probably talking sometime in the last 3-5 years.
On the issue of land preservation, you may be interested to know that many Midwestern cities are increasingly hemmed in by farms that are no longer owned by families who couldn’t resist selling to real estate developers. Instead, those corn and soybean farms are owned more by corporations producing ethanol who have no desire to sell their bounty. So while the farmhouses are abandoned and falling down, the farmland has become a robust factory floor to keep our nation’s addicition to cheap gasoline, more driving and urban sprawl fueled. Ironically, these three components are now colliding with each other thanks to corn/soy-based feedstock for ethanol. OK, I’ve wandered off-topic. But I thought you would enjoy the irony.
Ken Prendergast