New York Central/Big Four to Columbus - Norfolk Southern, Dayton District, Central Division
Former CCC & St. L (Big Four)/New York Central to Columbus
Standard gauge line opened in 1872
Downtown terminal: Central Union Depot (3rd Street & Central Avenue)
Line begins at Ivorydale (St. Bernard) and heads north via Sharonville, Middletown, and Dayton
In active use
The Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railway
(CCC&I) was formed from the merger of the Cleveland, Columbus &
Cincinnati Railroad (CC&C) with the Bellefontaine Railway on May 16,
1868. The Bellefontaine had been formed by a merger of the
Bellefontaine & Indiana Railroad and the Indianapolis, Pittsburgh
& Cleveland Railroad in 1864. At its inception the CCC&I had 83
locomotives, 47 of which came from the CC&C and 36 from the
Bellefontaine. After its formation, the CCC&I sought to make a
connection to Cincinnati. This connection had never been realized by
its predecessor line, the Cleveland Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad,
which ran trains only between Cleveland and Columbus. In 1871, the
CCC&I made agreements to lease and operate the Cincinnati &
Springfield Railroad (C&S) and its 16 engines between Cincinnati and
Dayton. That company was building a somewhat indirect line in
order to serve
Dayton and Middletown, but it came straight down the length of Mill
Creek Valley with only two curves and a gentle descending grade to reach
the recently completed extension of the Marietta & Cincinnati
at what
was soon to be called Ivorydale Junction after the chief product made
in the neighboring factories of the Procter and Gamble Company.
The C&S hadn't even finished construction when leased by the
CCC&I, but service started just one year later in 1872. They
also leased the Cincinnati, Sandusky & Cleveland Railroad between
Dayton and Springfield, finally providing a through route from Cleveland
and Columbus to Cincinnati.
On July 23, 1882, the CCC&I acquired the
Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad (I&SL) in a judicial sale. The
St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute railroad, which the I&SL had
leased, was included in the sale. The I&SL continued to be operated
under its own name after the acquisition. On July 1, 1889, the
CCC&I merged with lines in Indiana and Illinois to form the
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, known as the Big
Four. At the time of the merger, the CCC&I had 161 locomotives and
the I&SL had 47. The Big Four eventually became a part of the New
York Central Railroad.
Closely paralleling the CH&D through the Mill Creek Valley, this new company used the Indianapolis & Cincinnati's Plum Street Station and later Central Union Depot with the Marietta. After
the 1913 flood the tracks east of Dayton were rerouted to the south
away from the Mad River and what would later become the Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base. At the same time they bypassed their old route
through Franklin by way of Carlisle and two bridges over the Great Miami
River. They built an imposing
truss bridge and viaduct over the Miami & Erie Canal and Dayton Cincinnati
Pike. Due to the shallow angle at which the new elevated
railroad bridge crosses the highway and the former canal, a sizable
two-span skewed Pratt through-truss bridge was built to span the
highway. A viaduct made up of several plate girder spans with
small trusses was also built to carry the railroad over the canal, which
had already fallen out of use but wasn't formally abandoned.
During the Penn Central years, the Big Four east
of London was downgraded and mainline trains were routed onto former
Pennsylvania track, an arrangement still in use today, and the track
east of London has been largely abandoned. Despite reroutings and
changing traffic patterns north of Cincinnati, the line through the Mill
Creek Valley remains very busy, and it is now operated by Norfolk
Southern. To
combat congestion, NS and CSX have a directional running agreement
between Ivorydale and Hamilton whereby the majority of northbound trains
run on the former CH&D and southbound trains run on the former Big
Four and PRR Richmond Division north of Mill in Evendale. Just
past Mill, the large Sharon Yard used to be the major
classification facility, but it has been demoted in recent years in
favor of the Queensgate area, though it still has several tracks in
use.