 |
| Westbound double-stack following the morning sun at Iron Triangle Park, Fostoria, OH. |
Part I..............Part II.............. Part III..............Part IV
We began Thursday (7/30/15) at the Best Western in Fostoria, so it was only natural that we take another spin down by the tracks on the way out of town. We saw some interesting sights as the diamonds cleared up in NS's favor. We met some more interesting people too. Among the fans was the author Paul Roth who published a series of 3 books called Railroad Vistas I-III. He had a copy of III on hand and Charles and I marveled at some of the subjects in the photos. As soon as I saw a P&WV lashup, I wrote down the info to order all three books, from Amazon as it happens. He turned out to be an academic, involved with music and from PA so he and Charles continued to talk on those lines. And yes I did order the books once I found the piece of paper about 10 days later.
It was a relatively short and uneventful drive down OH-18 to Bellevue. Our goal was a new railfan park built by the Mad River and Nickle Plate Railroad Museum. The new Kemper Rail Park sits right in the junction of several lines from all directions, including a W&LE line shared with NS. Since we arrived right at lunch time, the pizza joint down the tracks looked pretty enticing. The pizza turned out to be pretty good too. 
The park is relatively new and therefore doesn't have all of the amenities yet. You can also see why. The location is completely surrounded by rail so plumbing and utilities might be a problem. However, with plenty of restrooms at the museum and plenty of local eateries, the nice pavilion and plentiful benches and tables are more than enough to enjoy the place. Just sitting in one of the major rail junctions for the NKP was enough. 
Almost the minute we got there and began to get our bearings, the W&LE showed up. Not bad, though we could have had a cleaner shot elsewhere. It wasn't long afterwards that the Toledo line past the museum came to life. First an eastbound general freight then a westbound local led by an SD40-2.with an NS designed "Admiral Cab" 
I think we escaped for the pizza place at this point but returned in time for this autorack. Not sure if it went south or headed west on the old NKP Fort Wayne line. Another fan had dropped by at this point. He had apparently done a volunteer stint at the museum and was doing some railfanning before heading home. He was fairly young and had a cool rig he made with a collapsible pole for elevating his camera. The blue tooth in his camera sent the view to his phone where he could fire off photos. Apparently it's still in "beta testing" but a cool concept nonetheless. As we talked we found out that he too was a book author, or at least the prime photo contributor. His name is Brandon Townley and he has been involved with two books on Ohio railroads; Norfolk Southern in Action and CSX in Action. They were available on Amazon but I found both at the museum so purchased them there to help out. I got the last copy of the CSX book and Charles also bought the NS. We do meet interesting people.
No mistaking the origin of the northbound freight though, you can see the cars snaking back around the bend toward Ft. Wayne. The lashup was pretty wild including an SD90MAC and a Crescent Cab SD60E.
This southbound out of the yard features yet another SD90MAC. The W&LE was doubling onto it's train in the yard here. When he left, an NS westbound blocked our view.
The offending southbound under the "Mini Plant" signals.
A northbound AEPX (American Electric Power Service) coal train led by an early SD70 curves off toward Toledo. Like old PPLX coal trains but with far more oddball reporting marks mixed in.
This northbound's oddball lashup not only has a now common SD90MAC but a hard to find GP59.
The last shot of the day before breaking off was this westbound 261 RoadRailer. This was definitely going to veer off to the west on the Fort Wayne line. Toward the end of our stay the accumulation of fans dropping by was down to just one other guy. He turned compelling when we found out he was a steam locomotive engineer at nearby Cedar Point Amusement Park. I didn't get his name but I think he swapped business cards with Charles. Charles had learned how to fire steamers so the two conversed about such things. For me they might as well have been discussing nuclear physics. I have no idea, even elementary, about operating a steam locomotive. But, I have ridden the very trains this guy runs around the park on the Cedar Point and Lake Erie RR. On two occasions my debate team visited the park on the way home from nationals. It's 3' gauge and generally a bit more prototypical than most railroads you see at zoos or parks. All of us left when it appeared we'd hit a lull. It was time for supper and check-in at the local motel.
On Friday we headed for Baltimore. Once we got to our turn on OH-18 we didn't get far before encountering the town of Monroeville. This is an old T&OC/NYC depot on the roadbed the line that once bisected the junction at Bellevue. Hard to tell but the building behind it may have been a substation for an interurban line. To the left is a junction of W&LE lines. The SPV atlas proved really handy here to attempt to sort it all out.
Down the road a few miles we went over three tracks leading into the huge Willard yard complex. We drew blanks on Willard except that a fan we met yesterday wanted to go there. We found this intriguing and we wanted breakfast. We did the usual "follow the tracks" through town and sighted engines, some of them, unusually, were red. We'd found the engine facility and a string of CP GP9u's that seemed to be heading to new homes. The roundhouse area was to the right, full of the expected CSX units. We didn't know our way around, or the extent of the yard so we kept moving east once we got our photos. One thing we noticed was a line out of the yard that was following our route. It is apparently the Ashland Railway now and runs south out of Willard. 
We'd seen the Dennison Depot before. It was part of our 2012 trek to North Platte. Only that time we couldn't get inside since we missed closing time. Here we got in and ate at Lucille's diner and bought a couple of things at the gift shop. This is now on an Ohio Central line but it was once on the PRR Panhandle Division and as important a shop town as Altoona. A couple of former GECX B39's passed by WB with a few freight cars while we ate. Last time we were here we had just missed a westbound too, but we had the scanner going then.
Our day was not complete. We continued down the OHCR to Mingo Jct. Here we encountered a local next to the steel works. Unfortunately we later found the mill will be dismantled despite some attempts to restart with an Electroforge upgrade. The roundhouse, terminal and yard area has been disappearing for many years. 9 or 10 years ago when I last visited with the "Wheelman" the roundhouse was gone but the concrete pads were visible but there was still plenty of yard. Not much to see now, though a tank with Conrail Quality on the side is still visible. A lot of the yard is now gone. This terminal and surrounding steel mill towns like Wierton and Steubenville were once the home to many large Alco's that hauled iron ore down from Lake Erie. This naturally made Mingo Jct. popular with Alco fans. The declining steel industry has made these places quite unneeded. A similar scene probably plays out with the Great Lakes ports that handled the iron ore. 
That was the last photography we did in Ohio on Friday. We headed straight for my brother's place near Baltimore since the hour was getting late. On Sunday we visited the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museums in Baltimore and Ellicott City. I'll severely limit myself here with a photo of one of my favorite diesels at the Baltimore museum. BAR fans will know why this one appeals to me. I took dozens of shots but that's not very sporting for this series of posts. I did want to include some of the really historic stuff at Ellicott City though, since some of it is recent.
The Ellicott City branch of the B&O Museum features the oldest purpose built railroad depot still in existence. You'll note that from the end it doesn't look "normal". That's because the B&O not only had no pattern to follow, but loco's and cars were so small that they were stored inside the depot. The "Tom Thumb" and sample car in Baltimore illustrate what was stored there. This depot once had two doors and two storage tracks inside. Later a small 50' turntable was placed in front and the depot modified with only one door. As loco's got bigger than the depot that end was closed off and it wasn't long before the turntable was too small and it was filled in. In fact, it's only been a couple of years since the turntable pit was discovered and carefully excavated. Everyone thought the pit was simply a retaining wall until someone dug around it. Apparently other depots on the line had a similar turntable but this is the only survivor. 
We did the "follow the tracks" routine when we exited I-81N at Southampton, PA which meant we turned right (north). After tracing tracks a couple of miles and seeing nothing we headed back zig-zagging from the other side. Naturally we found the park back near the interstate where we started. If we'd gone left and turned at the first left, Airport Rd. we would have gone right to it. Yes, the map clearly shows this. Anyway, the place is very nicely appointed with ample paved parking and spacious shelter. They have a scanner running and there's plenty of picnic tables spread around. A town building nearby has restrooms. This is part of the NS's former Reading Lurgan Branch that connects to the old N&W Hagerstown Branch. It's an important and moderately busy line these days for north-south traffic. But, we hit a mid-day lull and got skunked. We left at 4pm after about 90 minutes. The scanner was silent. We headed out for the Railroad House Restaurant in Sinking Springs on the NS Reading Line to meet Charles' wife for dinner. Just approaching the crossings in town we saw two trains. Then, two more went by as we ate. Finally, a train approached again as we left. This last photo was taken as we made it about 100 feet from the restaurant (opposite side of tracks). It was nearing dark so that was the last shot of the trip. The train turned out to be a very late "All Day 11J" auto racks returning west to Detroit, MI from Newark, NJ.
BC
Part I..............Part II.............. Part III..............Part IV
No comments:
Post a Comment