Georgia Road Transportation

HISTORY

The Cincinnati and Lake Eire Railroad (CLE) found its roots in a midwestern interurban, legally formed as a corporate entity in January, 1930, by the consolidation of three existing 1929 electric interurban lines: the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton (CH&D); the Indiana, Columbus and Eastern (IC&E); and the Lima-Toledo Railroad (LT). The combination of these three companies created an interurban system that operated a south-north line from Cincinnati through Dayton and Springfield to Toledo, and an east bound line from Springfield to Columbus, OH.

The reorganized railroad was directed by Dr. Thomas Conway, Jr., a professor of business at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Believing that he could turn the interurban into a very profitable passenger and freight operation by embracing the burgeoning automotive industry in the Midwest. During his leadership, the CLE made substantial investments in infrastructure and rolling stock, including passenger cars and freight locomotives. The interurban’s business and prospects improved as hoped, particularly in the movement of freight. In 1929, it handled 83,000 short tons (75,000 t) of freight in Cincinnati. Conway then contemplated the advantages of extending his railway north to Toledo, Ohio connecting to Detroit, OH where the CLE could tap the shipping business of the automotive industry. Conway expanded the CLE by acquiring the Indiana, Columbus and Eastern and the Lima-Toledo as the two teetered at the edge of bankruptcy. These acquisitions gave him the desired access to Toledo. In early January 1930, the three combined lines were officially incorporated as the Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad.

Conway had his new Cincinnati and Lake Erie enterprise issue $3.7 million in stock and $3.5 million in bonds and began an extensive 1930 round of infrastructure improvements and equipment purchases. The timing proved unfortunate as this extensive borrowing was added to the already large bond debt of the last two purchases came as the United States entered the Great Depression, which lasted ten years to 1939. The requirement to make the large interest payments on these bonds when added to the railway’s normal operating expenses caused the line to operate at a paper loss every year except 1936. The CLE teetered on bankruptcy but managed to continue to operate due to the refinanced bond payments and increasing automotive freight traffic. By the start of WW2, the company became a key route for the war effort, moving manufactured war materials to connecting roads. The CLE totaled 323 miles in length and consisted of three operating divisions. Company offices and the train dispatching center were located in Cincinnati, OH.

Part of Conway’s effort to rejuvenate the C&LE came at the beginning of the WW2, with war time demand allowing him to improve freight business and quickly add the new technology of diesel locomotives. Interurban traffic was sidelined for increasing capacity to move freight as light electric lines were dropped for rebuilt heavy freight mainlines By the end of the war, the CLE was worn and tired. Post-war increases in demand as manufacturing switched back to domestic production allowed the CLE to rebuild its railroad and add the newest EMD and ALCO offerings. The interurban passenger operations barely survived into the 1950s, as Americans fell in love with cars and highways. CLE found itself tied permanently to the cycles of the automotive and manufacturing interests of the Rust Belt of the Midwest.

By the 1960s, the CLE was once again struggling as the automotive and steel industry experienced prolonged systemic industry changes. Traffic was steadily being eroded by trucking and typical regional passenger operations were dragging the bottom line. The Staggers Act of 1972 allowed the railroad to re-organize and stave off bankruptcy for the second time in its existence. It added the newest EMD, ALCO and GE locomotive offerings in the early 1970s to reduce operating costs, but the long steel mill strikes of the late 1960s through the 1970s and the onset of import automobiles closed many of the CLE served domestic OEM plants. The railroad survived with abandonment of unprofitable lines and acquisition of parallel former competitor Penn Central lines allowed the CLE to hang on into the 1980s. The once proud Class One of the 1940s and 1950s was now an overblown regional rationalizing operations to survive.

MODERN OPERATIONS

The CLE along with its access to EAST terminal facilities occupied a strategic physical position in these new oil and gas trains. The massive metroplex of Chicagoland was already waft with delays due to congestion, and this new business quickly increased to the point that it only added to issues moving trains out of Bakken in Canada to US markets in the Gulf. CLE-EAST provided a roundabout link through the EAST terminal in East St. Louis where trains could by-pass Chicago and interchange with US roads where capacity was available. Trains could then move south over the Georgia Road former IC lines or travel eastward and southward across the CLE and reach eastern connections such as CUT and MDRail. From these connections, trains could flow to refineries and pipelines along the Atlantic Coast.

The Marcellus and Utica regions were perched directly north of the CLE Ohio Division. LPG could move westward on an all CUT routing to Chicago, or turn south on the CLE and access the Gulf or Western US using GARD or Gateway System (EAST-WEST) connections at East St. Louis. These new trains taxed the CLE and its EAST partner. Eventually, the CLE sold interest in its operation to its primary interchange partners, CUT and GARD. This move tapped resources to rebuild the CLE system, expand and streamline yards and terminals, and procure adequate locomotives and rolling stock to maintain expected levels of service.

The Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad was positioned in a unique area of the Midwest particular for automotive and petroleum sectors typically moving by rail. The railroad regularly moved Bakken oil trains from its interchange with Canadian railroads in the greater Chicago area as well as Marcellus Oil trains moving interchange partner and part owner Cumberland, Utica and Toledo Railroad. Much of this traffic moves southward toward refineries on the Chemical Coast refineries and pipelines around the Gulf of Mexico through Georgia Road connections.

Most class ones require the shipper to lease or provide a minimum of two buffer cars, one on each side of the unit train. In addition, a number of cars are required to be loaded with non-combustible material or held empty to provide the six car minimum non-hazardous separation between the loaded train and the locomotive power. The buffer cars are required to be a substantial car with some type of ballasted lading such as sand or rock to provide extraneous buffering action and reduce the potential hazards of slack between locomotives and the loaded train. Most railroads employ covered grain hoppers or open aggregate cars loaded with sand or a crusher-run ballast. In recent years, the use of otherwise obsolete air slide covered hoppers has become the rule for regularly assigned buffer cars as they can be easily loaded with sand and generate revenue from a car that would otherwise be useful only as scrap. CLE actually began rebuilding its fleet of buffer cars for open lease.