Springtime Railfanning Action at Marion Union Station in Marion, Ohio. 04/17/2026.

Hello everyone, sorry for the long delay in uploads of my railfanning adventures. Long story short, over the past two months I have been dealing with some serious health concerns and this unfortunately has halted my ability to both go railfanning and thus my ability to upload new videos. Fortunately, I am doing much better than I had been doing and I am back to doing more railfanning albeit in a bit of a limited capacity. That said, some railfanning is better than no railfanning at all and I will be uploading more recent videos sooner than later. Today's video features my last big railfanning adventure from April 2026 shortly before I got sick. On Friday, April 17th, my buddy and fellow YouTuber Cincy Railfan Productions and I ventured up to Marion, Ohio, and had a pleasant spring day of railfanning here at the Marion Union Station. In the span of about eight hours of railfanning, we caught a grand total of fifteen trains. Oddly enough, we caught six of those trains in the first two hours alone thanks to two different train meets. The first was the rare three-way meet with NS intermodal 266 and its counterpart NS intermodal 267 meeting on the Sandusky District, and at the same time CSX L457 headed north on the Columbus Subdivision. The second meet was between an eastbound autorack and westbound manifest M331 with all-SD70MAC power. After the meets along with NS autorack 11E passing through between the meets, the next few trains were of the typical assortment for your average late-morning/early afternoon in Marion. Norfolk Southern sent 28N, while CSX sent westbound autorack M277 and the eastbound hotshot I008. The second surprise on the day came shortly after I008 with a railgrinder heading south on the Sandusky District. Despite the railgrinder holding up rail traffic for about 90 minutes for NS, Cincy Railfan Productions and I got to see it in action as it let the sparks fly while crossing the diamond. This was one of the only times I have ever caught a railgrinder in action polishing the rails, and this is a good thing as they do hold up rail traffic while they work. As cool as they are, I prefer seeing the trains in action (obviously). As the afternoon progressed, CSX led the way this time in terms of action. The Indianapolis Line featured a rare grain train; grain trains are rather uncommon for this line here through Marion as they typically take the Columbus Subdivision or the Scottslawn Secondary closer to Columbus, but not today. In my over twenty trips to Marion, I had never seen a grain train on the Indianapolis line, but there's a first time for everything. After the NS local train headed south along with NS intermodal 276, CSX had two southbound trains on the Columbus Subdivision with their second grain train on the day and a rather long L456 heading down to Watkins Yard in Columbus. Even though it is not a particularly busy line, it is always nice to see action on the Columbus Subdivision. The final mainline Norfolk Southern train on the day featured a dying breed of engine; the venerable Dash 9. As almost all of you know, Norfolk Southern is busy rebuilding their remaining Dash-9s and will likely finish the rebuilding by the end of this year at the earliest. I know I have said this before, but catch them while you still can. Overall, this day of railfanning was a solid day here in Marion. Though certainly not the busiest day we have had here, Cincy Railfan Productions and I still had fun. I hope to return here before the end of the year once I start to feel much better. As always, thanks for watching. Enjoy the video! -N&W475.