Hello everyone! On Saturday, July 16th, Cincy Railfan Productions and I ventured up to Marion, Ohio, to attend the 2022 Marion Conrail Days at the Marion Union Station. This was our first-time attending Marion Conrail Days since 2019, and we had an interesting day of railfanning at Marion. Cincy Railfan Productions and I met some pretty cool railfans there, including @cincyrailfan @CSC2001@JEREMY33085 and @PennsylvaniaCentralDepot . Hanging out with these guys was undoubtably the best part of my day here in Marion, and I strongly encourage you all to visit their channels and check out their content.
For those of you unfamiliar or unaware of what is Marion Conrail Days, Conrail Days is an annual gathering and get-together of many railfans and the Marion Conrail Historical Society at Marion Union Station. The railfans and members of the historical society reminisce about the good ol' days of railfanning in Marion when Conrail ruled the rails. In fact, at one point Conrail was the biggest and busiest railroad through Marion, with the Indianapolis Line seeing upwards of 25 trains per day on a daily basis. The Indianapolis Line is still an important line for CSX just as it was for Conrail, though it sees less traffic.
For the first time in a long time, this was the first up-and-down day of railfanning I had. In the first two hours of railfanning, we caught 7 trains, which is a rather impressive count for Marion in such a short amount of time. CSX kicked off the action with a southbound coal train on the Columbus Subdivision and for the first time ever, I caught CSX intermodal I007. I007 is the daily westbound intermodal train that runs on the Indianapolis Line Subdivision, traveling from New York to St. Louis. Typically, we don't see I007 in Marion as it runs early in the morning. Fortunately for us, it was running behind and so we were able to see it for the very first time in our many trips. Afterwards, Norfolk Southern via the Sandusky District sent its share of trains, including a northbound coal train, intermodal train 20N, and a meet the coal train and manifest 14Q. Today's 14Q was pretty cool as it featured two rare fallen flag cars; a Milwaukee Road grain hopper and a Chicago North-Western grain hopper. CSX manifest M364, the daily manifest from Avon Yard in Indianapolis to Selkirk, New York, came not long after with a Maine Central boxcar and some other cool boxcars. A southbound NS coal train completed the action for first two hours.
After the first two hours, train traffic took a bit of a dip. For the remainder of the day, we saw only 10 trains in a span of seven hours. Norfolk Southern had issues with PTC signaling and ATCS between Worthington and Attica Junction, Ohio. As a result, train action was rather impaired along the Sandusky District, and had to run the line like in single-track operation. NS did successfully send intermodal trains 218 and 21N, as well as manifest 179, but even so, but the ATCS issues resulted in a lack of northbound trains. CSX Indianapolis Line a while later sent their pair of trains; autorack M204 and intermodal I008. These are the two CSX trains you can expect to see in the early afternoon on a near-daily basis. After about two hours since 21N rolled through, the next Norfolk Southern train rolled through with 234 eastbound. 234 was unfortunately the last NS train on the day, and the remaining trains were all CSX. On the Columbus Subdivision, CSX sent a northbound loaded coal train and another pleasant surprise in M635. M635 is the daily manifest train that runs between Selkirk, New York, and Columbus, Ohio, and is another train that does not typically run during daytime hours. Even for the slowdown in trains in the afternoon, I will say Cincy Railfan Productions and I were lucky to catch two CSX trains we don't typically see in I007 and M635. On the Indianapolis Line Subdivision, CSX ran M332 and capped off the action with a local train led by an SD40-3. M332 is a rather unique train as it is a combo train of manifest, autorack, and intermodal cars. It is one of just a few trains like it on the CSX system.
Overall, this was a decent day of railfanning that could have been much better in terms of train traffic. I had a great time meeting new people and checking out the Conrail displays inside Marion Union Station. As I said before, do make sure to check out the YouTube channels of the guys I met on this day of railfanning, they would certainly appreciate your generous support.
Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy the video!
-N&W475.
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