Ohio Valley Railroads

As many of the regular readers of this site are aware, few segments of the DL&C mainline from Lebanon north into Dayton are left. However, the ghosts of the line can still be seen if you know where to look. One of the great areas to see some old roadbed is Delco Park in Kettering.

Located near the Delphi automotive parts plant, this was part of the original TD&B Dayton main that ran to Lebanon junction. In 1912 the DL&C built their line into Dayton proper, but ironically the longer route survived longer.

William Bryan was kind enough to provide some photos of this area. I had been meaning to get down there for a while now and would like to thank him for making my job a little easier. The photo at the top of this post shows a bridge that was left in place when the rest of the rail was removed. You can see another view of the bridge to the right.

He also took a shot of the roadbed remnants going north into the plant. The future of this remaining segment of the line, now owned by Norfolk Southern, is in serious trouble. For a while the closure of the plant had been rumored, although a buyer may yet try and save it. I do not know the current status of any of these negotiations.

The last photo he sent in is perhaps one of the most interesting featuring the date plate on the bridge itself. A date of 1907 is listed. This happens to be the same year the DL&C was reorganized as the Dayton, Lebanon, and Cincinnati Railroad and Terminal Company and may have been one of the first new infrastructure investments of the new company.

Photo Credit: Dayton Daily News

I few weeks ago I was made aware of this slideshow published by the Dayton Daily News. It features the complete souvenir book published by the DL&C. The PRR and made part of the CL&N.

The promotional booklet was found by Joni Knopp in a box bought at auction. Some of the photos I had seen before, especially in reproduction postcards, but some of the photos are new to me and might have never been published before.

The booklet, officially titled “The Dayton, Lebanon and Cincinnati Railroad and Terminal Company and Tributary Industries”, features photos of most of the major industries along the line. Highlights include the limestone quarries in Centerville, a couple coaling spurs, and Lebanon’s brand new Shoe Factory.

This would be a great resource for someone wanting to model this line. The booklet even includes an interior shot of the Oregonia Bridge Company’s plant as well as the only known shot of the Kilpatrick-French Motorcar Company in Lebanon. It helps put a face on previously blank structures known only from old maps.

If you’re the least bit interested in local railroad history I encourage you to check this booklet out. It’s well worth your time to click through the 50 or so photos.

With great sadness I begin our last post in the series Along the DL&C. In these posts I have so far shared five special reproduction postcards I acquired. Each postcard features a photo on the front, showcasing a “Scene Along the DL&C”. Tonight I’ll finish with my last postcard, the Aungst Brothers Elevator.

It wasn’t planned this way, but by ending with this postcard we come full circle. In the first part of this series, I discussed the Aungst Brothers Mill. This elevator is the other half of the complex. During the 1920′s both the mill and the elevator would eventually become the Lebanon Farmer’s Cooperative.

This elevator was of wooden construction, in contrast to the all aluminum construction of the Brant’s Hardware elevator. The latter wasn’t built until the 1930′s. It was served by the same spur that served the mill, and in this photo you can see a number of boxcars sitting on the track, possibly full of grain to be shipped out. Grain was not shipped in covered hoppers until after World War II.

Today Miller’s Antiques stands on the spot of this old elevator. The postcard photo is taken looking across Broadway. The elevator burned down at a date I am still unsure of. As seen in this photo from Lebanon: Celebrating 200 Years the building went through a number of changes before becoming the antique mall of today.

I’m also unsure on when the spur was abandoned and pulled up. The photo above shows how there is still room, save for some landscaping, for a spur between the main and the antique building, so it is likely that the spur was still there when that building was constructed. The actual switch for this spur was located in Broadway. This posed little problems when the track was laid, but I imagined it created a maintenance headache when the road was paved over.

One last detail one might notice is the track running the length of Broadway in the foreground. This was the track for the
IR&T (Interurban Railway & Terminal) interurban railway that ran from Cincinnati to Lebanon on a route mostly parallel to the CL&N. It became a primary competitor to the CL&N, but proved not to be financially viable. The route to Lebanon was abandoned in 1923.

The IR&T’s track came from South Lebanon and entered Lebanon from the south, across the Broadway bridge. It then crossed the CL&N on a diamond. Of interesting note, the tracks were not exactly standard gauge. Instead, the interurban used the 5 foot gauge of the Cincinnati Street Railway, which allowed them to use Cincinnati’s street-running tracks. Today the track is still embedded in parts of Mulberry and Mechanic Street’s in Lebanon. If measured, one can still see the unique gauge today.

The Aungst Brother Mill was an important business for rural Lebanon. These postcards provide an idea of what the long-vanished building looked like, and as the only photograph I have found could prove crucial to modelers. I hope you enjoyed my Along the DLC Series. Next weekend I’m going to return to another series and publish my long delayed look at Lebanon: Then and Now. In the future if I ever acquire some more photos I hope to be able to revisit life Along the DL&C…

For further reading about life around the Lebanon Cooperative, be sure to check out my article on The Lebanon Yard: Then and Now.

Last week in Scenes Along the DL&C we witnessed a special excursion train just outside of Centerville. This week, we’re going to be taking a look at Dodd’s Canning.

The town of Dodds is a small burg located on old 122 just north of Utica Road. Originally there was a small town located at the corner of Utica Road and 122 named Utica. It had a school and a post office.
When the railroad came through Dodds it would eventually outgrow the older burg, earn its own post office, and have a number of houses along the street.

Dodds, 6 miles past Lebanon, was originally the terminus of the CL&N line and its connection with the TD&B narrow gauge line to Dayton. It probably included a side track and some form of engine turning facility. After the breakup of the TD&B and the abandonment of the narrow gauge line from Dodds to Dayton, service along the line from Lebanon to Dodds was suspended by the CL&N in 1887. It was unprofitable to operate for the short amount of traffic north of Lebanon.

The track lay north of Dodds lay rusting until Harry Lewis bought the route in 1889 and created the Dayton, Lebanon, and Cincinnati. The DL&C brought a number of changes to Dodds and the route along it. The road was rebuilt and soon made standard gauge. In addition, the track from Dodds to Lebanon was leased to the DL&C for 99 years. This allowed Lebanon to be the terminal of both roads, and meant the DL&C would be Dodds’ railroad for the next 63 years. It would be abandoned as part of the Lebanon-Lytle abandonment in 1952.

Dodds would also grow to include the Dodds canning operation. Dodds canning was one of a number of canneries located along the more rural parts of the CL&N line. There were also canneries located in Mason, Hageman, and Lebanon. These provided a sizable amount of traffic during the harvest season, where every spare boxcar around would be put in canning service.

The photo above is taken from old 122 looking South. Here’s a shot of the area today. The DL&C mainline is highlighted in blue.

The main building of the canning complex appears to still be standing today, though heavily remodeled. The similarities between the building in the picture and the one in the satellite photo are unmistakable.

The photo also shows at least 1 private spur track that was located closest to the canning building. This is another photo that was taken around 1912. Notice that the primary method of transportation is horse cart!

At this point I only have one real question about this article. If it is taken at the angle I think it is, then the cross-buck would actually be on the left-side of the road. I don’t know if that would be common around the turn of the century or not. My one guess is that it is located there to be by the telegraph pole, but I don’t know for sure.

Dodds is an interesting example of the many small farming communities located on lines that made up the CL&N system. Unfortunately, these kind of villages and these industries never provided enough revenue to make operating these lines profitable.

This post is a little late this week, but here we’re going to take a look at one of my remaining DL&C post cards. This is a photograph of one of the DL&C passenger specials somewhere along the line north of Lebanon. A know very little about the circumstances of this one other than simple observations that can be made.

For starters, this train is a longer train then would normally be seen along the line. The normal passenger train from Lebanon to Dayton rarely would stretch beyond two or three coaches behind the locomotive. This combined with the white flags on the engine lead me to believe this was some sort of special. The track itself looks to be standard gauge, and this puts the date of the photograph after 1890 , probably around 1912 which is when most of these photographs were taken. The DL&C was merged into the Pennsylvania system in 1915.

The train is pulling out of what appears to be either a passing siding or industry spur. In the background appears to be some sort of barn or industry and those dark shapes could be freight cars sitting on a spur.

In the foreground sits some spare ties and rails.

Next week, in our next to last installment of Along the DL&C, we’ll take a look at Dodds canning, and take an opportunity to discuss some of the history of Dodds, Ohio.

Edit: After checking another source, I’ve confirmed the photo was taken of an excursion train in 1912. It is said to be near Centerville.