DESHLER, Ohio — For those who have long hoped to preserve, or even restore, the distinctive old passenger depot that once served “The Crossroads of the B&O,” the train may finally be leaving the station.
It will be headed, however, in the opposite direction.
Last month’s arrival of an environmental cleanup contractor at the building, derelict since the 1990s, raised a red flag for locals who consider the L-shaped, yellow-brick building a symbol of the community, and last week a CSX Transportation Corp. spokesman confirmed their fears.
“The depot is scheduled for demolition,” Sheriee Bowman, a railroad spokesman, said in response to a query. Asked when that schedule might be, Ms. Bowman said there was “no specific timeline available. But the plan is this year.”
And Greg Zoll, president of the Bartlow Township Historical Society — which once approached CSX about acquiring the building but was told any recipient would have to move it away from the tracks — was resigned to the depot’s fate late last week.
“It’s a lost cause,” Mr. Zoll said Thursday. “That ship sailed for me a long time ago.”
Mr. Zoll said he did not believe anyone with the historical society had been in contact with CSX since about 2000, and the point of no return probably occurred when a derailing coal train punched a hole in one of its walls in 2002.
The depot’s fate was sealed “especially after the derailment, and the general neglect of the building for the last 30 years,” he said.
Deshler once was a transfer point where passengers on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad could connect between trains on its mainline — which linked Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Pittsburgh to the east with Chicago to the west — and those running between Toledo and Cincinnati on its primary north-south route.
The station was hardly as grand as those in bigger cities, but it was a local landmark and distinctive in its own right, Mr. Zoll said.
Signs on the village outskirts once proclaimed Deshler’s “Crossroads” status and railroad employees accounted for a significant segment of its population.
But passenger trains last stopped in Deshler in 1971 with the startup of Amtrak and cancellation of a Toledo-Cincinnati train the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had continued to run under state orders even after it ended its last Washington-Chicago service the year before. When Amtrak trains briefly used the former B&O during the 1990s and early 2000s, their only area stop was in Fostoria, 25 miles to the east.
B&O continued to base freight agents and other employees in the depot for a while thereafter, and CSX, which merged the B&O and several other railroads during the 1980s, used it for storage until mid-1995. But since then, the main visitors to its interior have been families of ducks presumably attracted by its water-filled basement and able to get in through gaps in its foundation.
Speaking to The Blade in 1996, Linda Panning, a previous historical society president, said the group first approached the railroad about acquiring the building in 1987, but was told it was still in use. In early 1993, a CSX official sent a letter saying the company would consider selling it “as long as it is relocated from the existing site to property owned or controlled by the historical society.”
Ms. Panning said at the time the historical society didn’t have the $100,000 such a move had been estimated to cost.
It countered with an offer to obtain insurance and erect a fence similar to one that separates a historic train station in Marion, Ohio from the three sets of intersecting railroad tracks that pass it, but the railroad said the Deshler building was closer to the tracks — too close.
Later on, Mr. Zoll recounted, “The society had somebody who was going to move it for them for free, but he passed away” before that could be arranged.
The depot occupies the Deshler crossing’s northwest quadrant, while an old signal tower made of matching brick occupies the northeast. Mr. Zoll noted that CSX recently replaced the tower building’s windows. While its use for directing trains ended long ago, the railroad continues to base maintenance workers there.
“The tower is in really good shape,” he said. “It’ll be here for a long time. The depot, not so much.”
First Published February 13, 2022, 3:50 p.m.
