Leipsic passing track & Fogg ?

[Mark Johnson]

All:

Here's a story from my family that I'd like to offer for your entertainment - and/or to confirm or refute:

My grandfather, whose farm is bisected by the Monon immediately railroad-south of Leipsic, told me once that the passing track at Leipsic was removed in the early 1960's and that the rail was used to extend the siding at Fogg to its final 160-car length. The fact that there *was* a passing track at Leipsic, just railroad-north of the "Tater Road" crossing at Foutch's implement store, is supported by the fact that there were (are?) a pair of semaphores visible, about 3000-4000 feet away, with blades indicating absolute-permissive onto a passing track in one direction, rather than both ways as would be typical for an intermediate block signal.

My own memory of Leipsic only goes back to about 1964, which would have been a couple of years, give or take, after the passing track was removed. My sparse collection of time cards does show that the Leipsic passing track disappeared somewhere after 1959 and that Fogg became 60-70 car lengths longer at about the same time. My grandfather's memory for such things was, while not perfect, pretty darned good. I have researched several stories he told about the family or the Leipsic area, and what he told me has always been pretty close to everyone else's memory. [I am also now a part-owner of the said farm, which we planted in trees about 20-25 years ago. MP 266 is contained inside our property].

Comments? Other evidence? Fire away, gang!

Mark Johnson
Columbia, MO
MRRHTS #349 (1983)

[Kevin Ruble]

Well here's something interesting I found in researching your question, Mark:
Timetable 13 of 10/27/61 shows Leipsic as a station on the scheduled pages with an 80-car passing track, and Fogg with a 76-car passing track.
Timetable 14 of 10/28/62 shows Fogg with a 76-car passing track but omits Leipsic as a station altogether - on both the scheduled pages and on the table of "Stations and Tracks Not On Scheduled Pages"
The last four Monon timetables, Timetable 15 of 10/24/63 through Timetable 18 of 4/27/69, all show Fogg with a 180-car passing track, but all still omit Leipsic from any mention on either the scheduled pages or the list of business tracks, in spite of the fact that we know there was a business track there, the remains of which are still in place as I recall.  I can understand removing Leipsic from the timetable after the switch to the spur was removed and the track was no longer functional for operational purposes, but I don't think that happened until well after the L&N merger, correct?

So it appears as if the extension of the Fogg siding happened during '62 or '63, but it's a bit strange that the railroad would disavow any knowledge of the existence of Leipsic after the removal of the siding.

[Mark Johnson]

Hi Kevin:

I found something similar in my own research, although my collection of ETTs from the 1960s is not very complete. The business track at Leipsic was still in place last November, although the fertilizer plant and Foutch's Implement store are both long gone. I do think it rather odd that timetable #17 (the next to last one) doesn't even list Leipsic as a spur under "Other Tracks" on the southern division. Other, similar business spurs are all there.

I remember in the late 1960s and early 1970s that Leipsic was intermittently a significant destination point for bagged fertilizer in boxcars, bulk granular fertilizer in gons, anhydrous ammonia (usually several carloads every spring), and the occasional flatcar with heavy tractors or combines. I have a vivid memory of a SBD extra switching 4 or 5 boxcars at Leipsic sometime in the late 1970s - the local was powered by an MP15 switcher. Unfortunately, at the time I did not have a camera. The operation was completed quickly and the local train (with another 15-20 cars in tow) was on its way in under 10 minutes. I watched the whole operation from the front porch of Foutch's store.

My family bought a lot of that fertilizer as we were running about 300 acres of corn & soybeans immediately east/railroad south of Leipsic. At a guess, I'd say we probably accounted for most of a carload-equivalent in tonnage every year in those days. It took a lot of fertilizer to raise corn even then, and much more now. Our farm is now planted in trees, as of about 20-25 years ago. We're probably another 20-30 years away from harvestable timber, and the family is trying to decide what to do with the property.

Mark J