A Brief Stop At Leipsic, Ohio

Norfolk Southern; Leipsic, Ohio; May 16, 2014

 In our last post we started on a trip to the conference of the Center For Railroad Photography & Art in suburban Chicago. On the way out my brother Bruce and I stopped at two busy Ohio junctions, and stopped at a third on the way home. In the last post we spent a night at Crossroads Park in Deshler. After sunrise on May 16, we left there and headed to another busy junction town, Leipsic.

Leipsic actually has two diamond junctions where two lines cross at grade. The former Nickel Plate Road (officially the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, now a part of Norfolk Southern) is the east-west line through town. It crosses the former Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton (later part of the Baltimore & Ohio and now a part of CSX Transportation), and the shell of the interlocking tower that protected the junction is still there. Just a bit further west the ex-Nickel Plate crosses the former Detroit, Toledo & Ironton (this part of the old DT&I is now operated by the Indiana & Ohio Railroad).

Norfolk Southern; Leipsic, Ohio; May 16, 2014

We got to Leipsic and were quickly greeted by our first train, an eastbound Roadrailer on NS (two photos above). Roadrailers are hybrid semi trailers that can operate on both highways and railroads. We then heard horns south of town and caught a northbound oil train on the former CH&D with Canadian National power leading. Oil trains need a spacer car between the locomotives and the first tank car, and this is usually a boxcar; in this case it was a loaded center-beam lumber car.

Canadian National (on CSX); Leipsic, Ohio; May 16, 2014

Back at the NKP/CH&D diamond, our next train was an eastbound on the former Nickel Plate, an autorack train led by Union Pacific power. We caught it with the tower as a photo prop.

Union Pacific (on NS); Leipsic, Ohio; May 16, 2014

 Looking down the tracks from the NKP/CH&D diamond we could see a CSX local heading south over the DT&I diamond. We raced south of town and got it passing between a set of classic Baltimore & Ohio color position lights.

CSX Transportation; Leipsic, Ohio; May 16, 2014

 From there it was back to the tower for one last eastbound on the former Nickel Plate. A Norfolk Southern stack train finished off our visit to Leipsic. In all, it had been a very brief and very active two hours in the Ohio town. You can find more photos from this day here.

Norfolk Southern; Leipsic, Ohio; May 16, 2014