BASS RUN RAIL RIDERS INC.

GLASSROCK SPUR HISTORY

“The Glass Rock spur” is all that is left of several different rail lines and is rich with railroad history.

The majority of the line that remains was constructed by The Columbus and Eastern Railroad Company in 1883 and was opened for service in 1884. This section of the line ran from Thurston to Fultonham via New Salem, Thornville, Walser, Yost, Glenford, Glassrock, Mt Perry, ultimately ran to Saltillo.

Fultonham, or “Uniontown” as it was known, was a major railroad intersection where 3 separate rail lines all converged. In Fultonham there were extensive rail yards, a watering station, depot and a Railway Express Agency. Very little is left of the buildings, yards and sidings but the Wye is still in place to this day.

The remainder of the current Glassrock spur east of Columbia Cement, through White Cottage crossing St Rt. 93 and ultimately where it braches off from today’s OSRR’s mainline, was actually built by the Pennsylvania Railroad during the 1930’s for the sole purpose of servicing Portland (Columbia) Cement. This spur to Columbia cement was known to the Pennsylvania RR as the Fultonham spur, or FS. Their track rights stopped at the cement plant. This gave 2 completely separate railroads access into Fultonham from South Zanesville during a brief period of time.

The original line into Fultonham from the east was constructed by The Columbus and Eastern Railroad in 1886 and placed into service a year later. This original C&ERR section was mostly abandoned in the Penn Central era as it had become a redundant line into Fultonham and was less direct that the other “FS” spur route. The old C&ERR roadbed can still be seen to this day just north of the current existing rail from Fultonham to
Darlington.

In October 1902, the original C&ERR portion of the line, which had already undergone several ownership changes by a few short lived railroads, was conveyed to the Zanesville and Western Railroad. In less than a year, in September of 1903, the Z&W was purchased by The Toledo and Ohio Central Railroad. The Z&W operated under T&OC ownership between Thurston and Muskingum. This lasted from 1903 until 1922.

In 1922, the T&OC leased the line to the New York Central Railroad and they continued to operate the line through 1938 when the Z&W was merged into the T&OC. The T&OC itself was merged into the New York Central in June of 1952. NYC sustained operation of the line from 1952 until February 1, 1968, when it merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad, New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad to become the Penn Central Transportation Company.

PC filed for bankruptcy in 1970 and was dissolved with several other railroads in 1976. The freight assets formed the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail). The passenger services formed Amtrak. As Conrail began operation, many of the customers began drying up along the line. This led to the eventual removal of the line west of Glassrock through Glenford and onto Thusrton. Similarly the line south of Fultonham that ran though Saltillo and onto Crooksville was also doomed.

In the late 1970’s, Conrail had a derailment taking out the bridge crossing Moxahala Creek just north of FS spur isolating all traffic on the Glassrock spur from Zanesville. The switch at FS was moved 3 car lengths south to allow a slow 2 car at a time switch south. All railcars now had to be brought to south to New Lexington for interchange. The line was quickly becoming unprofitable and Conrail’s decision was to scrap the remainder of the line.

Rather than scraping the line, Conrail opted to sell the line to the State of Ohio in 1982. It was then briefly contracted to a short lived company named the Moxahala Valley Railroad. MOXV was headquartered in East Fultonham and their operations only lasted a few brief years.

The Ohio Southern Railroad was next to take over the spur and began operations in late 1986. Ohio Southern operated between Glassrock and New Lexington. In the fall of 1987 OSRR began reconstructing the Fultonham Spur tressle over Moxahala creek. This would once again allow interchange to Zanesville to the north and eliminate an often time consuming switch to the south. The original NYC tressle just north of Darlington was dismantled, repainted and rebuilt over Moxahala Creek to replace the old bridge destroyed during the Conrail days.

In Feb 1988, “The Governor’s Special” ran from Crooksville to Zanesville to commemorate the reopening of the tressle over Moxahala Creek. OSRR now operated the Glassrock spur, FS north to Zanesville, and from FS south to New Lexington. This arrangement would only last several years. As several coal mines in
SE Ohio began to close their doors, it became harder and harder for OSRR to remain profitable. This led OSRR to cease operations from FS south to New Lexington in 1992.

However they continued to operate between Glassrock and South Zanesville. Trains containing sand from the Central Silica sand plant in Glassrock were run to the Owens Corning glass factory in South Zanesville. Central Silica would also receive shipments of chemicals used in the production of the sand.

In the spring of 1995, over a million dollars of Ohio grant money was spent on ties, ballast and brush removal from Fultonham to Glassrock. Ownership of the last customer on the line changed hands to Ogleby Norton in 1996. This finally led to the demise of the Glassrock spur. Sadly in less than a year, on July 20, 1996, the last train left Glassrock never to return.

This entire rail corridor sat completely unused from mid 1996 until 2000. In early 2000 several coal mine operations were to be opened in southern Ohio allowing OSSR to receive state grant money to rehabilitate the portion of the line from New Lexington to South Zanesville. The state owned the line in 2000 when the OSRR began its rehab the line from New Lexington to South Zanesville. Coal trains from the mines in Glouster began operating shortly there after hauling coal to AEP’s Power generating plant in Conesville.

In March of 2006, OSRR purchased the section of rail from New Lexington to South Zanesville from The State of Ohio. The state of Ohio still owns the FS spur to Glassrock and it remains out of service to this day.

In July of 2006, BRRR was officially formed and began its mission to acquire, clear, and operate the former Glassrock spur as Ohio’s first and only recreational railroad for use solely by vintage railroad motorcars.

In January 2008, the newly formed Zanesville and Western Scenic Railroad secured a storage lease from ORDC granting them permission to store their scenic railroad equipment on the line between FS and S.R. 93. They are currently working to secure a long term operational lease in order to clear and repair the line in such a way that passenger and motorcar excursions can be run.

Researched and written by Matt Mantell