Fostoria
There is a new upload in the library that encompasses Fostoria, OH. While it is not on my "to do" list, it does interest me because of an event in January 1999. We were on Amtrak, doing a round-robin, Jacksonville to Jacksonville by way of DC, Chicago, Seattle, & LA, which in those days could be done at reasonable cost even though we went sleeper the whole trip which took 10 days & nights, including a day in DC and a day in Seattle, both planned. However, just before the Capitol Ltd. left DC we learned that there had been a horrific derailment on what was then Conrail, west of Toledo, and we would detour via Fostoria to the old B&O line, thence to Chicago. Our onboard manager which the long distance trains had then, told us all that there was no problem, we would just boogie on into Chicago via CSX and have no problem making connections, the Empire Builder being ours. You cannot do this today because the Sunset Ltd. does not go east of New Orleans, but you could then take the Crescent to Charlotte and a North Carolina train from Charlotte to Ralegh, and then Amtrak from there to Jacksonville which would repeat some mileage.
I took the lad aside and identified myself as a CSX employee in the signal department and informed him that since Amtrak had left the B&O(CSX) a few years earlier, the signals, and most importantly the crossing starts were set up for freight only, maximum speed 60mph, instead of 79, and that traffic was heavy. He nearly passed out from this news. We arrived in Chicago 2 hours after the Empire Builder left, but we had a guaranteed connection, something I don't think Amrak has these days, so we were handed tickets on a NorthWest flight to Minneapolis that left at 7pm, and got us to Minn-St.Paul at 8pm, a full hour before the Empire Buildler and we also had a taxi waiting to take us from the airport to the midway station that Amtrak used then. So we missed 400+ miles of relatively rare mileage but nothing worse.
Jerry Sullivan
I took the lad aside and identified myself as a CSX employee in the signal department and informed him that since Amtrak had left the B&O(CSX) a few years earlier, the signals, and most importantly the crossing starts were set up for freight only, maximum speed 60mph, instead of 79, and that traffic was heavy. He nearly passed out from this news. We arrived in Chicago 2 hours after the Empire Builder left, but we had a guaranteed connection, something I don't think Amrak has these days, so we were handed tickets on a NorthWest flight to Minneapolis that left at 7pm, and got us to Minn-St.Paul at 8pm, a full hour before the Empire Buildler and we also had a taxi waiting to take us from the airport to the midway station that Amtrak used then. So we missed 400+ miles of relatively rare mileage but nothing worse.
Jerry Sullivan
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