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(erielack) Marion and environs

Listers......I've been away from the list for a few days so playing catch-up here with a few answers to some questions posed about Marion and operations post 1976.

Steve Timko was correct that Marion's identifiers were RN for the yard office and GN for the telegraph/phone monitor's office which was upstairs in the Diesel Shop, right next to the dispatcher's offices.

The Marion Diesel Shop was closed completely on 3-31-1976. After that date and until the sale of the property to Berwind Industries (in 1977 IIRC), the EL Estate hired Marion County Sheriff's Deputies to guard the building and the dead-line locomotives stored there. East end dispatchers  (those controlling the Marion to Kent sub and the Dayton Branch) and communications maintainers continued to work out of the shops for just a few months after Conrail until their duties could be transferred to Youngstown. There were some  technical issues with joint trackage between Galion and Marion which was under EL control and the interlocking at Creston which was also controlled from the Marion office. I'm not 100 percent positive, but I think the west end dispatchers were annulled on 3-31-1976 as there were no trains routed west from Marion after 3-31-1976. The trackage only saw two trains, the first  being a rescue movement during the blizzard of 1978 and the second being the salvage train. The Dayton Branch was embargoed on 3-31-1976 in favor of PC trackage originating elsewhere (Bellefontaine or Lima ??).

Ed Montgomery wrote:
With the recent discussion of the Marion Division as well as some pictures of trains at Marion from George Elwood's site I have some questions.  Marion was joint NYC/EL trackage.  The tower was 100% Erie but I don't think the station reflected either the color of Erie or EL.  Even the station ID Board wasn't the typical Erie black and white.  Was the station under the management or responsibility of NYC?  I think it's gray/silver paint indicated that.

Marion Union Station was built jointly by the Erie, CCC&StL, and Hocking Valley (C&O) railroads. Costs of construction were split evenly between these three entities. Note that the Pennsylvania Railroad (predecessor of the Norfolk & Western Railroad) was not a party to this agreement as they had their own station nearby. The Hocking Valley and later, the C&O staffed the station but expenses were split among the three railroads based on the number of passenger trains stopping there. Interesting that when we went to purchase the station, CSX thought that they were the only owner of the property. We had to prove to them that they only owned one third and Conrail owned the other two thirds ( the Erie share and the NYC share). It took me the better part of a year to *negotiate* with CSX but only a matter of weeks with Conrail.

Rich Pennisi asked......:
Is it possible maybe C&O, NYC or Pennsy Sandusky line dispatchers were 
located in the station?When I arrived in Marion in September of 76, there were two or three ctc machines in the office in a corner about mid way in the shop building facing 
South.  The far west one was mostly  out of service.  If  I'm not mistaken, when 
the Erie Western took over the west end, that west machine was trucked back to 
Huntington.

Dispatchers were never located in Marion Union Station. You are correct that the west end ctc machine went to Huntington. I don't know what happened to it after that. The east end machine has been recovered and is on display in Union Station.


                                     Rich Tubbs
                                     Marion, OH
                       ELHS Subscriber #1226 (a GP7)
                          Former EL Tower Operator
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~tubbs/ErieLackawanna/

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