CSX Q162 Taking The North Control Siding in Heavy Fog - Willoughby, Ohio

Filmed 4/8/2020.
Ok, filming in fog is absolutely amazing, if you get the chance to, you do it. After a huge storm that passed through the previous night and with the mild air meeting a cold Lake Erie, you got a lot of fog. The train on the other hand was a little more of an anomaly as a Eastbound mixed freight and 2 westbounds forced this onto the NCS. With Percision Scheduled Railroading in full swing, this was probably the longest train I've ever seen take the North Control Siding here in Willoughby in all my years of coming here to railfan. Hope you guys enjoy this, stuff like this doesn't come around often.

[@KGSnow2]

Ah, yes. Back in the days of Conrail (Late 70s, early 80s) my buddy and I were taking photos there, and we were befriended by the very gracious and kind crew of the "Willoughby Turn Job". They were the ones who moved the coal down to CEI. They would sit with us in their shack, which was just to the right of your picture frame (is it still there?) and explain all about their job to us. We watched as they pulled 110 coal cars east on the North Control until the rear end cleared the switch points for the east leg of the wye. Then they would back the cars down, while the conductor took his own vehicle and guarded the crossings. Sometimes, if the coal had been parked on the south siding near Rte. 91, they would have to pull east until the rear end cleared the crossovers in Mentor, then stop and get permission from the dispatcher to cross over the two main line tracks, and get onto the North Control from the east. When they pulled empties out of the CEI yards, they came out on the west leg of the wye. These men are all long since retired, and it was Conrail, so I can say that the engineer on that job was a big railfan himself, and he gave us cab rides several times. Once I went out to Geneva with him, and I was down in the Collinwood yards with him, in the cab of a GP38. Once we went on the crossover to NS, to pick up a coal train that was parked there. I will always be grateful for the privilege of having those experiences.

[@lakeerierailfan7140]

Wow, this is a cool story! The shack is still standing and is in use for mow crews as mow power gets stored in Willoughby sometimes. I witnessed the Cei job as a kid many times as well and its a shame that I never got the chance to really film it until it was out of regular service.

[@ElliottWolcott]

Nice catch of CSX Q162.

[@lakeerierailfan7140]

Thanks!

[@ElliottWolcott]

Lake Erie Railfan Your welcome.

[@clevelandrailfan9776]

Great scenery

[@lakeerierailfan7140]

Thanks! Erie Street is already a good spot, fog just tops it off.

[@northernohiorailfanningpro8899]

Nice! Ive Never caught a train going into it

[@lakeerierailfan7140]

Thanks! This is a somewhat rare occasion that requires multiple trains heading both directions in a short time to have dispatch put a train in the NCS.

[@davidcoleman958]

Wow I remember this train. How times have changed in a couple years! Did you ever see Q090 and Q091 before this?

[@BessemerLakeErie902]

Nice! Do you know the reasoning why it took the siding?

[@lakeerierailfan7140]

Thanks! I've filmed here for over half a decade and I seen this happen many times over that timeframe but there are only a few constants to why the North Control is still used today, I have a few theories. In this case 2 westbounds were in the frame and a eastbound was already about to depart out of Collinwood. As a remant of the 4 track system, the only real use this stretch sees is when westbounds are coming in in pairs or more along with collinwood being occupied, so to clear things up for the westbounds, they send the lower of the 2 priority trains on the NCS to move the train to roughly mentor where the NCS ends. Ive seen this happen in reverse as well. Basically I believe the NCS is used for when Collinwood is about to see a lot of trains and has traffic in both directions at the same time. It doesn't happen often anymore as one of the original uses for it was for cei for coal but that plant is now just a substation and not a power plant anymore. Only real traffic that spur sees is the local for DeMilta and maybe Amerigas. If CSX starts retiring stuff ( which is unlikely ) CSX has stored coal cars here before, I believe there may even be a cut or 2 back at the plant, Im not sure but that is the main use for the spur.

[@lakeerierailfan7140]

I caught more than just this yesterday morning, I'll have that up soon.