The Fostoria Rail Park

Of course, the reason I drove down to Fostoria was not for the old buildings but for the promise of many trains.  During my searching on the internet, they made the claim that there were at least 100 trains per day that passed through Fostoria.  In looking at the layout, I could understand why.  It is on a main north and south line for CSX, the main east-west lines for Norfolk-Southern and CSX.

 The park itself was opened in 2013 and is on a plot of land called "The Iron Triangle".  It is basically the convergence of the three lines stated above.  Currently the park has the structure in the picture above.  It has restrooms and a place to stay in the shade for a bit.  Evidently, there are plans to move one of the train depots on the land here.  I could forsee a rail museum of some sort.  I would have to say that the group that put this together did a pretty good job.  The sight lines to all three sets of tracks are pretty good.

 It didn't take too long to see my first train.  Actually, there was a train passing through before this one but I couldn't get out of the car soon enough.  Evidently, this train was waiting for a passing east-west train before proceeding.

 These tracks are pretty much dominated by CSX.  But that is cool because I like their color scheme.

 I think what makes this spot busy is because it is the main line between Toledo and points south.  It is also the main line between points east and Chicago.

 Just an example of some of the grafitti.  Sadly, there were better examples, but I thought this one was pretty cool.

 This is the CSX F-Tower.  It controls the rail traffic in the area.  Somewhere near the park, someone had a scanner tuned to this frequency, so I had a vague idea of when trains were coming.

 It usually wasn't too long before another engine would appear though. 

 I'm not sure what company this engine belonged to.

 Just to give you an idea of the length of the trains.

 I think the only railroad I didn't see a train from was CN.

 This particular train had six engines in the lead.  It was a long one.

 A pair of CSX engines pulling auto carts.

 As it passes the signal.

 A coal train.

 Another pair of CSX engines.

 This train pulled up to this point, waited for a bit and then pulled back into the tracks it was on.

This CSX engine ended up heading westbound after crossing into the other set of tracks.

 A BNSF engine leading a Canadian Pacific Engine.

 They also became a westbound train.

What appeared to be a Norfolk-Southern engine.  Instead, it looks like it may end up getting painted and given new colors.

 A diesel engine that appears to want to be a steam engine.

 Another pair of CSX engines.

 They were followed closely by another train.

 And then an eastbound train came shortly after them.

 Another Norfolk-Southern engine.

And I end this post with a train heading off into the distance.  I think I ended up spending about 4 hours there.  In that time, I saw roughly 20 trains.  So it seems the 100 trains per day number is fairly accurate.  This of course means that I will have to wander back down here some day.