Cleveland railroad history

An historic trolley.

Cleveland railroad has long been a major part of railroad, from the late 19th century to present day.

History

Early rail history

Cleveland railroading began in the 19th century when the New York Central and Nickel Plate Road (New York, Chicago, & St. Louis) built two major lines along Lake Erie that handled major traffic per day, and had major yards on them at this point.

NKP's line bridged over the NYC's line in the western part of Cleveland, and the NYC line wyed in the mid-Cleveland area. One leg of the wye was an entity of NYC, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis (named Big Four).

CCC&StL and the NYC came close to one another and paralleled each other for one mile (1.6 km) in west of Cleveland in Berea. After this point, the CCC&StL continued southwest to Cincinnati and the NYC continued west to Toledo.

The NKP line continued west to Bellevue where they had two major hump classification yards. Then it wyed. One branch headed south to Columbus and Kentucky, one continued west through Fostoria to Fort Wayne, IN.

After these three divisions built through Cleveland, a commuter line (somewhat like a trolley/street car) called the "Cleveland Union Terminal Railroad" (CUT) built around the downtown area of Cleveland. NYC had joint ownership of this railroad three years after its formation.

Another short line conglomerate system built around in a loop shape near downtown called the Newburgh & South Shore Railroad (N&SS). Back in the those times, what is now "Harvard" was called "Newburgh."

With now nearly 190 miles (310 km) of track in and around the downtown Cleveland area, the Erie Railroad thought they ought to step in, which they did, purchasing 300 miles (480 km) of property, and built a 300-mile (480 km) line from Cleveland to Connellsville, PA (just south of Pittsburgh).

Wheeling & Lake Erie came into town about a year later with their line that ran south to Canton. At this time, Cleveland's industrial environment had seen a good upgrade with a lot of railroads serving the area.

Railroads built branch lines and industrial lines off of the main lines, and soon Cleveland had 960 miles (1,540 km) of track.

By this time, Pennsylvania had built their line from Pittsburgh into town, and Baltimore and Ohio built a line north from central Akron into town. A shortline switching company, the "River Terminal" railroad, was formed.

1950 to 1990

In the early 1950s, NKP started to fail at business, and in 1964, N&W bought the NKP. Now the NKP Lake line was in N&W's name, and N&W cancelled many of their stops in Cleveland, which forced other railroads to have to make runs instead of N&W.

W&LE acquired one of the runs, and B&O acquired the other five. B&O had nearly 120 miles (190 km) of track in the Cleveland corporation limits at this time.

In 1967, NYC became PC, and then thought-to-be successful Penn Central canceled all of their stops in Cleveland, which put two factories in the hole. And one shut down completely.

One industry refused an offer from River Terminal and Newburgh & South Shore. They offered immediate business. The factory still turned them down, and eventually, the lights faded in that industry.

By this time, there were only a handful of industries left, when suddenly, a factory from "Whiskey Island" called B&O up (which at the time was filing for bankruptcy to Chessie system) to make the runs.

In 1971, B&O made their first run to Whiskey Island, and the Island seemed really successful, until Chessie took charge in 1972. Chessie cancelled their stop there in 1975 after acquiring Western Maryland and obtaining more 'important' runs.

PC went bankrupt to Conrail a year later in 1976, and Conrail was a bright future for Cleveland. They re-opened many of the runs in Cleveland, and acquired the train to Whiskey Island.

Pretty soon, all you could find in Cleveland was Conrail. Conrail bought the CCC&StL, the NYC, the Pennsylvania, and the Erie.

Chessie was soon in competition with this and contacted many factories in Cleveland in search for trains to run, but it had seemed Conrail acquired all of them, the only Chessie run left, was the run to the dock facility near downtown, which was failing.

An unmentioned N&W line serving the dock was also in use, but failing severely. It wasn't long until the dock facilities went out, and N&W and Chessie had no runs left in Cleveland.

The Big Blue obtained N&SS and RT in 1979, then re-opened all the shortline companies as one single entity known as "Cleveland Works Railway Organization" (CWRO). The CWRO consisted of the "Cuyahoga Valley Industrial Railroad, the Newburgh & South Shore, the River Terminal and the Cleveland Union Terminal.

In 1980, Chessie was absorbed by CSX, and CSX opened one single line back to two tiny companies near the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. CSX started making some money here, so they continued those runs.

In 1982, the old N&W line was acquired in the merger by NS. NS also had some success at finding a couple needy businesses near downtown Cleveland. This run stayed open.

NS had spun off 16 miles (26 km) of track at this time, and a Class III bought it right up, without any engines or rolling stock, known as the "Flats Industrial" railroad corporation.

FI arrived at an agreement and signed a contract with Conrail that they be under joint ownership with Conrail and the CWRO. FI was given one single SW1001 at the time, which is what they still have.

In late 1982, CWRO and Conrail got a call from local Cleveland welding and iron ore companies and one dock facility. They asked if they could have the CWRO companies serve their industry, which ran for 8 miles (13 km) along the Cuyahoga River.

They paid the CWRO $1.5 million up front. Of course, Conrail got a percentage of this money. The CWRO at this time was very successful, and bought 19 switcher locomotives which they keep based at the south end of the welding company.

Conrail soon paid the welding company for an outdoor barn-sized storage building. After the arrangements were made, Conrail gave this building to CWRO for a fee of course, and made it CWRO's own, personal repair shops.

In 1984, the Cleveland Union Terminal tracks were sold to the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) as a commuter business. The RTA still makes big bucks today in 2006.

1990 to present

In 1999, Conrail was split up on June 1 between NS and CSX. CSX got the former CCC&StL trackage, and the former B&O trackage. NS got the former NYC trackage, the former N&W trackage and the N&SS trackage which it bought from the CWRO in 2000 for $2.2 million.

See also

• Railroad terminals of Cleveland, Ohio
• New York Central Railroad
• ConRail
• Cleveland Lakefront Station
• Akron, Bedford and Cleveland Railroad

References

General references

• Ohio Department of Transportation

• "RAILROADS IN OHIO" (HTML). Ohio Department of Transportation. http://www.dot.state.oh.us/ohol/OHIO%20RRs.htm. 
• "OHIO RAILROADS EMERGENCY CONTACT LIST CODE" (PDF). Ohio Department of Transportation. http://www.dot.state.oh.us/ohol/railroad%20emergency%20telephone%20numbers%20rev.%207-1-07.pdf. 

• "Railroads" (HTML). Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. http://www.puco.ohio.gov/apps/regulatedcompanylist/index.cfm?IID=53. Retrieved 2008-07-19. 
• "CWRO Cleveland Works Railroad" (HTML). CSX Transportation. http://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=customers.sl_directory-detail&i=2127. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 
• "NSR Newburgh & South Shore Railroad" (HTML). CSX Transportation. http://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=customers.sl_directory_statesdetail&i=2115. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 
• Norfolk Southern Railway Short Lines - Ohio

• "502 Cleveland Works Railway Co." (HTML). Norfolk Southern Railway Short Lines - Ohio. http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nscorp/Customers/Shortline/shortline-directory.html?showshortlinedetail=true&road=CWRO&state=OH. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 
• "502 Cleveland Works Railway Co. route map" (PNG). Norfolk Southern Railway Short Lines - Ohio. http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/shortline/images/maps/cwro.png. Retrieved 2008-07-28. ^{[dead link]}
• "519 Flats Industrial Railroad Co." (HTML). Norfolk Southern Railway Short Lines - Ohio. http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nscorp/Customers/Shortline/shortline-directory.html?showshortlinedetail=true&road=FIR&state=OH. Retrieved 2008-07-19. 
• "982 Newburgh and South Shore RR" (HTML). Norfolk Southern Railway Short Lines - Ohio. http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nscorp/Customers/Shortline/shortline-directory.html?showshortlinedetail=true&road=NSR&state=OH. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 
• "982 Newburgh and South Shore RR route map" (PNG). Norfolk Southern Railway Short Lines - Ohio. http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/shortline/images/maps/nsr.png. Retrieved 2008-07-28. ^{[dead link]}
• "856 Wheeling and Lake Erie RR details" (HTML). Norfolk Southern Railway Short Lines - Ohio. http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nscorp/Customers/Shortline/shortline-directory.html?showshortlinedetail=true&road=WE&state=OH. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 
• "856 Wheeling and Lake Erie RR route map" (PNG). Norfolk Southern Railway Short Lines - Ohio. http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/shortline/images/maps/we.png. Retrieved 2008-07-28. ^{[dead link]}
• "639 R. J. Corman Railroad Company/Cleveland Line" (PNG). Norfolk Southern Railway Short Lines - Ohio. http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/shortline/images/maps/rjcl.png. Retrieved 2008-07-28. ^{[dead link]}

• "Newburgh & South Shore Railroad, LLC (NSR)" (HTML). OmniTRAX. http://www.omnitrax.com/rail_nsr.aspx. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 
• "System Map" (HTML). Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. http://www.wlerwy.com/maps/wLEMAP.htm. Retrieved 2008-07-28. 
• Corns, John B. (1991). The Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway, Volume 1. Lynchburg, Virginia: TLC Publishing Company. ISBN 0-9622003-5-2. 
• Corns, John B. (2002). The Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway, Volume 2. Lynchburg, Virginia: TLC Publishing Company. ISBN 1-883089-75-1. 
• Rehor, John A. (1965, 1994). The Nickel Plate Story. Waukesha, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing Co..