Category Archives: NS

NS – Norfolk Southern, one of the most efficient mergers that took place in the 20th century.

Featured Products, NS, NS, Railroad Audio Product Reviews

New RAILROAD AUDIO CD TITLES

Photo of 1-West Productions™ Railroad Audio CDs

We’ve added more RAILROAD AUDIO CD Titles to our Product Line. The Series is called NORFOLK SOUTHERN-N&W 1980s AUDIO ™, Volumes 1 – 12. All CDs contain vintage NS in operation, starting in Winter of 1986.

Listen to older EMD units: SD45s, SD40-2s, SD40s, GP30s, GP35s, GP40s, GP38s, GP38-2s, SD9s, GP9s, etc.; GEs: C30-9s, U33Bs, etc., & 1 S-switcher ALCO (TLE&W). Run-through freights, switching, locals, & more were recorded near the Bellevue, Clyde, & Flat Rock, OH areas, with 1 recording near NE Grand Rapids, OH of the TLE&W.

Volumes 1-4 were recorded in Mono, & the volumes after were recorded in Hi-Fidelity/Stereo/Panning Stereo. Minutes of each Volume vary from 18 minutes to over an hour.

Photo of NORFOLK SOUTHERN-N&W 1980s, VOL. 1 AUDIO ™, from 1-West Productions ™ Front Cover
Example of 1 of our RAILROAD AUDIO CDs now available for purchase.

We also have a few new MODERN RAILROAD AUDIO CDs also available.

Photo of Audio CD Front Cover of RAILROAD SCANNER RADIO-CSX-CHESSIE, 1987/88 AUDIO, VOL. 4™ from & © Copyright 2020 1-West Productions ™
Example of 1 of our RAILROAD SCANNER RADIO AUDIO ™ Products.

Additional Audio CDs that we now carry include RAILROAD SCANNER RADIO AUDIO, with vintage 1980s Conrail, NS-N&W, & CSX-Chessie. Listen to dispatchers, crews, shops, trains, & more. We will have modern railroad scanner radio audio available as well. Keep checking back.

Videos are great, but also so are AUDIO CDs, where you can listen & use your imagination for imaging- a totally different experience.

Each Volume has a description of each Audio Track on the back cover, with photos of actual trains that were recorded at the time.

Enjoy!





© 2020 1-West Productions™/PJ Duplication Prohibited.

NS, NS, Railroad General Discussions

Norfolk Southern’s New Castle District

NS’s New Castle District is part of NS’s Lake Division. It became part of NS’s major system per the N&W and Southern Railway (SR/SOU) merger in 1982. Part of the line from New Castle, IN to Ft. Wayne, IN was part of the Lake Erie & Western (LE&W), then Nickel Plate (NKP-NYCStL), and Norfolk & Western (N&W- 1964-1982). Another section of this line was originally the Pennsylvania Railroad’s (PRR) Buckeye Division, known as the Richmond Branch. Per the PRR, New York Central (NYC), and New Haven Railroad (NYNH&H) 1968 Penn Central (PC) merger, the line became the PC’s Richmond Branch and Cincinnati Division (Cinci. to Logansport-Van, IN). By 1976, at the start of Conrail, N&W bought the line between Cinci., OH to New Castle, IN. NS-N&W through-freights on the line didn’t happen until after 1978. A lot of the line was rebuilt in the early ’80s.

Photo of SB NS on NS New Castle Dist., Muncie, IN ©1988, 2019 1-WP/PJ
SB NS Triple Crown on NS Lake Div.-New Castle Dist. (ex-LE&W/NKP/N&W), crossing CR Indianapolis Line (ex-NYC/PC/”Bee Line”), Muncie, IN 1988, from Norfolk Southern Early Years (1988-89), Vol.1 ™, from 1-West Productions™. (Photo © 1988, 2019 1-WP/PJ, by K. Lehman.)

NS upgraded the line, and is used for locals, and different types of freights. We have many examples of NS action on this line in our Keith’s Trains Series™ and 1-West Productions™ Featured Series™

In the late 1980s and through the 1990s, NS had various Steam Train Excursion Specials on the line (NS trains 061, 062, etc.), with steam power NKP 587 & 765, N&W J-611, and SOU 4501. We have footage of these trains running on the New Castle District during those eras.

Below is a list of mile markers and town along the way (from an early ’80s NS/N&W timetable), starting from Cinci. (Claire), OH, to Ft. Wayne, IN (Westward-or technically NW direction):

Mile Post: Station:

Photo of NS SB Triple Crown through Hamilton, OH on NS New Castle Dist. (ex-PRR/PC section), 1989.© 1989,2019 1-WP/PJ
NS SB Triple Crown through Hamilton, OH, on NS New Castle Dist. (ex-PRR/PC section, with trackage rights on CSX-ex-B&O Toledo Dist. between west & east sections of NS New Castle Dist.), 1989, from our Norfolk Southern Early Years (1988-89), Vol. 1™, from 1-West Productions™. (Photo © 1989, 2019 1-WP/PJ, by K. Lehman.)

(More to be added later)

© Copyright 2019, 2020 1-West Productions™/P.Jordan Duplication, public transmitting prohibited.

NS, NS

NS in the 1990s

What was the NS like in the ’90s era?  Things were still pretty much

Photo of NS in 1990s 1-West Productions

the same as in the ’80s, with standard older units in NS, N&W, & SOU paint, fallen flag freight names on equipment, a few cabooses, older track layouts, original signals, and more.  The 90s also brought the new Triple Crown service between CR & NS, and the newer W&LE Class 2 regional RR out of Bellevue & Brewster, OH.  NS 1990s Part I is a good example of this coverage.

 

Photo of W&LE train 1990, 1-West Productions

 

Also the ’90s brought more freight cars with the applied NS roadname, CSX cars were showing up more on trains as well.  NS GP30s and SD35s were showing up in loco deadlines, fewer cabooses were being seen on freight trains, although still being used on most locals.   Steam excursions were still on the rails, but coming to a slow down due to NS’s concern over liability concerns, after a few derailments.

 

 

Photo of N&W 1218 steam by 1-West Productions/PJ

The NS merger proved to be one of the very few mergers that made sense, and actually prospered financially and efficiently, until the CR break-up in 1999 with CSX.

 

We will cover NS in the ’90s in our NORFOLK SOUTHERN 1990s™ Series as they become available.  We also cover NS in the 90s in our Keith’s Trains™ Series.

 

 

 

 

Blog Article & All Photos © Copyright 2016 1-WP™/PJ

 

N&W, NS, Penn Central, Penn Central, Railroad General Discussions, Railroad History, SOU

Penn Central, NYC, PRR, NH, & Conrail

1 Comment

The Penn Central, NYC, PRR, NH, & Conrail- one topic I’m really familiar with is the Penn Central Railroad. I’ve written extensively on this subject for some years, and even have another website dedicated to this railroad. Although there were many people who despised that railroad, it still played a very important part of keeping America’s economy flowing, regardless of its mis-haps. Those of us in the younger generations appreciate the PC for what it was, and the very wide range of modeling that can be done with it.

The PC was the joining of the New York Central, Pennsylvania, and later the New Haven Railroads. The NYC & PRR were joined in 1968, and the NH in 1969. The NYC and PRR were great competitors originally, with parallel routes. The NH was considered mostly a passenger road, with some TOFC trains, and the PC did not want to include them in their merger. However the ICC required them to take in the NH, if they wanted the ICC to approve the PC merger in the first place.

The new PC at the time seemed like it was going to work in the beginning, then hard times came. Unfortunately many factors happened, which caused the merger to fail in 1970. Factors were corrupt management, investments spread too wide, government regulations on rates that the railroad was allowed to charge to its customers, competition with trucks and air, deferred maintenance of facilities, tracks, and equipment, weather-related catastrophes (hurricanes, floods, severe winters, etc.), lack of freight cars, locomotives, and cabooses, parallel routes, and the government not allowing the railroads to abandon older secondary routes not needed by the railroads throughout the country.

Many would say that the PC was the only railroad merger in the States to have paralleled routes that failed or plagued with problems, and the only railroad to have dirty and run-down equipment, loosing money everyday, bad track, and corruption. But history and many good sources say that was not the case. Many US railroad mergers and companies, especially in the Midwest and East were in the same trouble. In fact, the ONLY Class 1 railroad that had fewer problems, especially during this time was the Santa Fe. Also the only merger that actually worked with fewer problems was the NS merger between the N&W and SOU later in the 1980s!

Finally the government had to step in to help, or an economic catastrophe was on the way. Conrail was formed and took over the PC, EL, RDG, LV, & CNJ- all that were in the same situations as the PC. CR grew a profit in the 1980s, and was taken over by NS & CSX in the late 1990s.

The PC is a favorite to many in modeling, studying, photo collecting, and more.  They had many paint scheme variations, colors, equipment types, unique colors, great facilties, yards, and more.  The PC was not a separate company that came and took over the NYC, PRR, and NH- they were simply the combining of these roads, just under a new name. And some say the PC lived on even under CR, since most of CR’s operations, tracks, equipment, personnel were PC. These days the PC is getting more difficult to see, as equipment is being replaced, things changed, etc. May the PC live on!

DVDs to check out:

-You can see some history about the PC on Revelation’s Penn Central DVD HERE.  Just one of many PC DVDs out there that has material the others do not have.

-Also a DVD about the NYC (by Revelation) HERE

-Many great DVDs with CONRAIL can be found in Keith’s Trains Series™ HERE

 

(Sources one should read that backup these facts are:  Wreck Of The Penn Central, Merging Lines, Penn Central Power, just to name a few!)

© Copyright 2015 PJ/1-WP™