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Re: (erielack) Re: EL in Railfan and Railroad
This may or may not be of interest to this site, but some Kent Sub dispatchers as late as 1969 or early 1970's would still refer to the hand operated trailing crossover at Ashland Hole as either the crossover at Ashland Hole (several places between Creston and Mansfield where the grade took a significant dip were referred to locally as so and so Hole - Burbank Hole, Ashland Hole, Black Fork Hole) or the LA&S Crossover. The crossover was near where the LA&S at one time had gone under the Erie. The first time I heard that on the dispatcher's wire, my curiosity was immediately piqued and I found out about the one time LA&S. I had never heard of it before. If you look at a Marion Division employees timetable you will note that some engines are restricted from the North Interchange Track at Ashland. Also, our hand drawn sketch of all the tracks in the lower yard at Ashland still labeled the one time LA&S main as LA&S.
Although the Erie was supposedly tied up in a joint operation of the LA&S, although they seemed to want to deny that in the 1920's, initially the people of Ashland welcomed it as a competitor to the Erie, their only railroad in town. I had done some research on the LA&S in the local Ashland paper microfilm records from the 1890's papers. The first part of the LA&S was built from Ashland down to a connection on the PRR east of Loudenville known as Custaloga. (I don't know if stilll possible but in the early 1980's
one could still see the right of way of the west leg of the wye at Custaloga). When it was completed,the paper was excited over the fact that they now had a competitor which they hoped would give them a better rate on their home heating coal. On the opening day of the line to Custaloga, it was one of the biggest attended events ever in Ashland history - before or since. The paper wrote about some minor PRR officials from Crestline (a trainmaster and someone else as I recall) attending the festivities and reading the paper's glowing description of the PRR officials attendance one would have thought that royalty or the U.S. President had visited town. In contrast, the 1913 paper treated the opening of the extension into Lorain with little mention. By then, they were more concerned about getting better roads and making improvements to the near by Lincoln Highway (Route 30 today).
Keith Robbins
- -----Original Message-----
From: Michael Connor <mjconnor_rr_@_hotmail.com>
To: ELRR Lists <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net>; 'Stephen Twarogowski' <stwarogowski@windstream.net>; krinmich@aol.com
Sent: Fri, Jun 19, 2009 9:35 am
Subject: RE: (erielack) Re: EL in Railfan and Railroad
Paul
The Lorain, Ashland & Southern was a joint Erie Railroad-Pennsylvania Railroad affiliate for most of its life. In its early abandonment (c. 1926) the Erie acquired the Ashland terminal trackage of the LA&S and the balance was scrapped. The newish book, "The Rattlesnake and the Ramsey," digs very deep=2
0into the history of this line although I still am puzzled as to what the Erie really got for consenting to abandonment of a jointly-owned direct link to Lorain and the tube works.
MJC
> From: doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net
> To: erielack_@_lists.railfan.net; stwarogowski@windstream.net; KRinMich@aol.com
> Subject: (erielack) Re: EL in Railfan and Railroad
> Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:58:40 -0400
>
> Thanks, Steve, I figured you'd chime in at some point. That's quite an
> Ashland Turn, 99 cars. Considering the FB-4 consist, it appears that roughly
> half the Turn was Hardings. Interesting also that the train was essentially
> empty parts cars. IIRC, the inbound materials for Fisher Body were trucked
> in from foundries nearby at Lordstown and Cleveland. I recall a study you
> sent me a while back, conducted by EL in the mid-60's, considering the
> potential for diversion of FB traffic from Cleveland being diverted to rail.
> It concluded that rail service was too slow and unreliable over such a short
> haul, not to mention the poor equipment utilization. One wonders if a
> dedicated short, reduced crew, interdivisional train similar in concept to
> Reading's "Bee-Line Service" might have succeeded here.
>
> There were quite a few customers at Ashland. It appears that activity on the
> Kent Sub was concentrated in two portions, between Harding and Ashland
> (including Mansfield), then further east between Creston (W&LE interchange)
> and Kent, and few custo
mers in the roughly 20 miles between Ashland and
> Creston. So a turn terminating at Ashland makes sense to me now.
>
> According to my SPV atlas, the LA&S (Lorain, Ashland & Southern) was a PRR
> affiliate, and evidently was abandoned long before the EL years. So I
> presume Erie picked up some LA&S trackage and customers in the Ashland area
> when this occurred.
>
> Paul B
>
>
> From: "Stephen Twarogowski" <stwarogowski_@_windstream.net>
> Subject: (erielack) Re: EL in Railfan and Railroad
>
> Industry in Ashland included the following (from the Central Territory firms
> list):
>
> Ashland City Farm Bureau Ashland OH EL Grain
> Ashland Equity Exchange Ashland OH EL Grain
> Budd Co. Ashland OH EL Railcars
> Eagle Rubber CO. Ashland OH EL Rubber Goods
> F.E. Myers Ashland OH EL Pumps and Sprayers
> Faultless Rubber Co. Ashland OH EL Rubber Goods
> Garber Publishing Ashland OH EL Printers
> General Latex & Chemical Ashland OH EL Liquid Latex
> Hess and Clark Ashland OH EL Animal Feed
> National Latex Products Ashland OH EL Rubber Goods
> U Brand Co. Ashland OH EL Pipe Fittings
>
>
> Picking a Sunday out of my January 1972 Marion Trainsheets it shows the
> Ashland Turn on Sunday, Jan 16, 1972 as being ordered at 1700 and departing
> Marion at 1900. 10 loads, 89 empties with RS3's 1005, 1037, 1026, 1008,
> 1021. The 1026 and 1008 were left at Harding; 1037 was left at Mansfield;
> the 1005 was left at Ashland. The following day FB-4 wa
s ordered at 1600
> and departed Marion at 2100 with C424 2406 and 1 load, 52 empties. It
> arrived OD at 2245. FB-5 made the return trip departing OD at 0035 with 43
> loads and 8 empties; 29/8 for Marion, 14/0 for the C&O. Looking at a few
> days worth of FB-4/FB-5 it looks like C209 was its assigned caboose.
> Conductor McAdow and engineer Schmitt.
>
> Steve
>
>
> From: krinmich_@_aol.com
> Subject: (erielack) Re: EL in Railfan and Railroad
>
> Paul
>
> The last crew at Harding was done on Saturday morning.? Sometime on
> Friday/Saturday whatever westbound with a divisional crew that came along
> and could work without delaying anybody would gather up the engines.? Could
> be MC-3, 93, 95, 89, 61 whatever - any Marion hump train.? Might not be the
> same train for all the engines because there was a timetable limit on how
> many engines you could have together.? Ashland had a lot of little places.?
> There was some kind of foundry and a lot of stuff along the old LA&S south.?
> Biggest place was probably Eagle Rubber (I think that's the name).? They did
> a lot of business but no tonnage because it was a lot of rubber toy
> products.? Eagle Rubber still was using a lot of the old 40 ft box cars just
> because of?their product with low tonnage.? I nerver worked as an agent
> there so I couldn't tell you all the places.? Ashland was the end of the
> turn because we had to get the serviced engine back th
ere in time for Monday
> morning.? There wouldn't!
> be anything to pick up coming back unless for some reason the Marions from
> Friday had gotten missed at Ashland or Mansfield or maybe there was still a
> WB of all Marions still sitting at Martel WB siding that had been set off
> because Yard C was filled up.? You couldn't pick up anything off the PRR at
> Mansfield because that would be a yard move and I don't really think it
> would be a wise idea to have rord power going into the sidetracks at
> Mansfield to pick up.? If there was anything, there wouldn't be anyone there
> to tell us it was ready.? Anything that got picked up on Sunday night was
> because it had not been picked up since?it was ready on Friday or the
> aforementioned Marions not moved because Yard C was full.? Usually by Sunday
> night we had cleaned up what we had set off on Wednesday through Friday
> that?had been?held out of Marion WB Yard.
>
> Keith
>
>
>
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