Hey, and welcome to another video.
For this trip we head northeast to Columbus.
I went to Ohio's capital city on a Sunday.
I knew there were several railroad bridges downtown that I wanted to get video of.
I just hoped I could catch a train or two over them.
The video includes a look at the Lower Scioto Twin Bridges, also known as the Scioto River Railroad Bridge South.
The western span carries CSX and the eastern carries Norfolk Southern.
I hoped to find out more about the two spans but everywhere I searched turned up few details.
Both lines continue south. The CSX line continues north while the Norfolk Southern splits east and west.
Sunday must be local day for the area.
I caught several CSX trains.
They all snuck up on me though, because there is no crossing nearby requiring them to blow their horn.
I had my scanner on, but it was recording in the car.
Buckeye Yard was planned by the Pennsylvania Railroad but built by the Penn Central for about $29 million.
Construction started in 1968 and it was open for business at the end of the following year.
It replaced several old yards on NYC and PRR around Columbus.
Buckeye took over farmland and connected three Penn Central main lines.
It was a very well designed and busy yard in its heyday.
It suffered a slow decline over the years.
It began when Conrail eliminated through traffic between Columbus and Pittsburgh.
Then it abandoned the Bradford Line west of Columbus to Chicago.
It saw a pickup in the 1980's when the Sharonville yard, north of Cincinnati, closed its hump.
Auto parts were a large portion of what came through the yard but that traffic slowed over the years due to closures around the state.
When Conrail was split, Norfolk Southern continued classifying cars for about a decade but the yard just wasn't in a good spot for the NS network.
Then came the great recession. NS stopped using the hump at the yard in 2009.
The doubling of Moorman Yard in Bellevue to the north was the final nail in the coffin for Buckeye.
NS still uses the yard for some locals and car storage.
One of CSX's five Ohio intermodal facilities is here.
As part of the Conrail sale, CSX owns part of the yard.
It completed a $59 million expansion in 2013.
It added 24 acres and doubled capacity from 180,000 to 360,000 lifts per year.
CSX's Parsons Yard was built by the C & O between 1926 and 1927.
The yard featured a 27-stall roundhouse, with a 115-foot turntable.
During the 1950s, as diesel locomotives replaced C&O’s steam locomotives, portions of the roundhouse were closed and unused bays torn down.
In 2015, only 15 bays remained.
Those remaining bays are used for a variety of non-locomotive purposes such as storage and as a garage.
Please let me know where I should head next.
I'm always looking for suggestions.
Have a great day!
www.columbusrailroads.com/new/...
columbusrailroads.com/new/util....
A Sampling of Penn Central - Jerry Taylor has some great information about the old yards and the Buckeye project.
/ 2217591.a_sampling_of_...
midamericafreight.org/index.p...
www.csxthsociety.org/journal/v...
www.columbusrailroads.com/new/...
bridgehunter.com/category/cit...