East End Scrapbook

The double diamond in the southwestern end of Defiance, Ohio, is a spot of striking contrasts. The irregular and worn out remains of the old Wabash main cross at grade the straight-as-an-arrow heavy welded rail of CSX Transportation. Rusting derail signs mark each side of the intersection, reminding the slowpoke Napoleon, Defiance & Western not to venture across these high-speed plates without permission from a voice in Indianapolis. And as an aging Uceta rebuild takes a sabbath with a singular covered hopper coupled on -- the picture of slow-paced shortline railroading -- in the distance, one horn, then two. Soon the ground rumbles and the steel starts to sing as the East Coast giant sends fast freight in both directions through the diamond. Both trains take every bit of the posted 50 mph permission, but trackside -- with the wind and noise and the dust -- it may as well be five hundred. Hotshot manifest one way. Heavy coal the other. Roll on, Boys. High green. And just as quickly as they came to this spot, and met under these tall signals, they both are gone. Gone on down the mainline as fast as allowed by the rules.

Meanwhile, over on a side street, a curved-roof rebuild waits out the weekend. Come Monday, perhaps, there will be permission to proceed and some more local work to do. Back and forth, dips and sags, one car at a time. In today's railroading, such contrasts are remarkably persistent; one could even say defiant.