The line from Fort Wayne east to Alliance was not as favored in the Conrail system as the duplicate New York Central Railroad lines, and, during rationalization efforts that took place in the early 1980s, this section of the Fort Wayne line changed in importance. Traffic heading from Pittsburgh to Chicago was routed onto the Cleveland Line at Alliance, while traffic towards Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and St. Louis was routed onto the former New York Central Big Four line at Crestline. The remainder of the line west of Crestline was reduced to a single track with passing sidings. The route's automatic block signals were downgraded to an absolute permissive block system with home signals at passing sidings and diamonds. This route was used by Amtrak's Capitol Limited until the early 1990s, when the train was rerouted via the CSX Chicago line and then eventually rerouted again onto the eastern half of the Fort Wayne line to Alliance. After the end of Amtrak service on the western end of the Fort Wayne line, all intermediate signals west of Crestline except North Robinson were taken out of service, and the route transitioned into being run by track warrant control. Conrail built a RoadRailer facility just west of Crestline, taking advantage of the light traffic on the Fort Wayne line, and Crestline's proximity to U.S. Routes 23 and 30. This facility was closed during the Conrail split.
After the breakup of Conrail in 1999, CSX acquired Conrail's portion of the line from Crestline to Fort Wayne and NS's portion of the line west of Fort Wayne, giving CSX a second route to Chicago.[12] NS kept trackage rights and acquired the line east of Crestline. The decision to give CSX the Fort Wayne line west of Crestline required the construction of a new interchange track in the northwest corner of the crossing with the Big Four line that CSX acquired. As part of the trackage rights agreement, Norfolk Southern is allowed to run up to 8 trains per day between Crestline and Bucyrus, where they have connections to their former N&W mainline from Sandusky to Portsmouth, and up to 6 trains a day into Fort Wayne. Norfolk Southern utilized their trackage rights heavily during the first year or so after the Conrail split; however, as infrastructure improved on the former New York Central and former Nickel Plate Road Chicago lines, the need for trackage rights decreased. In 2014, Norfolk Southern began running low-priority extra segments of regularly-scheduled trains via the western end of the Fort Wayne line to alleviate congestion on the very busy former New York Central Chicago line.
In the potential future, an Amtrak route running from Chicago to Fort Wayne up to 4 round trips daily has grown exponentially in support in recent years.
