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| Marion Union Station |
AUGUST 6, 2012:
This day began with us buying ear plugs at CVS and settling down to watch the action at Marion Union Station. CSX and NS gave us something to watch on all lines and boy were those diamonds loud. With daylight and an a few short lulls I also roamed around to see what historical artifacts I could photograph. A few are mixed in.
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| Marion Union Station |
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| Marion Union Station |
Right next to the station and across the former Hocking Valley line I ran into these items related to the
Marion Steam Shovel Company. Apparently its plant was across the tracks at one time. I hadn't even given it a thought though I knew of it. The sign was quite informative but I included a link. Panama Canal and NASA among its work.
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| Northbound N&W signals |
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| Southbound N&W signals. |
Next I wandered to the 3 lines to shoot the signals. They all had signals from previous owners dating back 50+ years and all appeared to be ready for replacement. In fact, most had new signals installed already.
The old N&W position signals were the most curious so I got to them first. As CSX provided the northbound on the Hocking Valley, I got one going through the old C&O "traffic light" signals. You can see that their days are numbered. New signals are already in place all around.
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| Northbound on the old C&O |
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| Southbound local on ex-N&W |
Perhaps the signals just look better when something is going by them. Here is a sampling of trains going by the old signals. These shots cover all three lines, though not every signal. I already have too many pictures here.
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| Westbound off the Big Four. |
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| Westbound off the Big Four. |
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| Former E-L Caboose |
Once I had my fill of the trains going by all the signals I finished getting some shots of the tower and caboose. The tower used to be higher and on the other side of the tracks to the north. There's an old Conrail rust cabin there now.
I found the design of the station and the surrounding artifacts to be somewhat fascinating. I have an N scale model of the caboose with a different paint scheme. The tower is useful for elevated photography. Charles did put a second video camera on the steps. Even the brick walkways were unique. One of the locals told us the elaborately fired bricks came from the basement floor.
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| Relocated tower |
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| Marion Union Station |
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| Attica Jct., OH |
Eventually we hit a lull around 11:30 am that just seemed to beckon us to move north to Bellevue. We followed the NS line the whole way and encountered 5 trains, including an Exhibition Car train. However, whenever we stopped to get pictures, nothing moved. To be fair, there seemed to be a maintenance blitz going on, so the trains we saw were working around this. Attica Jct. below just seemed to typify our plight on this route. At this spot the CSX (where I'm standing) crosses the NS in the distance. Trains stopped for MOW gangs as soon as we approached. Or, they moved in the distance when we couldn't reach them.
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| Mad River and Nickle Plate Museum, |
Our luck changed a bit when we reached Bellevue. MOW still had stuff stopped and much moved in the distance, but we were surrounded by museum pieces to look at while we waited.
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| Bellevue, OH |
Both the CN and CP provided something to watch too. I believe the CN runs come from IC origins.
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| Bellevue, OH |
Although a tower is in the way, you get the idea. CP may be here because of MILW/SOO. The museum's just acquired railfan platform is located to the left of the tower.
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| NS MOW work, Bellevue, OH |
The museum itself offered a huge variety of well maintained equipment and some very interesting displays of photos, papers, artifacts and misc. from all over. Before we set out for Fostoria, we made sure we saw everything the museum had to offer. We even drove over to a new "platform" that the museum has just acquired over nearer the tower. It was just a concrete foundation from an old building but it would be a great legal vantage point for future visits. By then a roof or a bench might be included. We never found good access to the yard but the highway overpass was pretty cool to drive over. Photos were possible but not ideal. The sun was getting to us by this time.
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| Replica of Ohio's first |
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| NKP china collection |
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| Inside the first ever dome car. |
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| SD-9 |
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| A quarry critter |
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| CNW Alco |
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| A very specialized shop motor |
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| B&O Alco switcher |
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| NKP cabooses |
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| Who doesn't like that herald? |
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| A fully equipped RPO car. |
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| At the helm of an RSD. |
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| NKP fans delight. |
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| Fairbank Morse |
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| GP30! |
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| Dynomometer Car |
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| Plymouth of Ohio |
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| Mad River and Nickle Plate Museum, Bellevue, OH |
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| Mad River and Nickle Plate Museum, Bellevue, OH |
Before we left the MOW parade moved west and all of the waiting trains moved into the yard. This line is the old Nickle Plate and is being upgraded significantly.
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| Mad River and Nickle Plate Museum, Bellevue, OH |
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| Mad River and Nickle Plate Museum, Bellevue, OH |
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| Fostoria Railroad Park |
We pretty much drove straight from Bellevue to Fostoria. We
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| Fostoria Railroad Park |
passed large industrial complexes that included Whirlpool and its large distribution facilities. We saw plenty but really very little to photograph well. As it turned out, we got to Fostoria with no concrete idea where to go. I did have clues but no location.
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| Fostoria Railroad Park |
The new railroad park in Fostoria is as new as they get. The "groundbreaking" was last September. Apparently all that could be done was to level off a gravel parking spot, put out a picnic table and place an outhouse. Apparently a long-term plan does exist and it includes the entire triangle between the three sets of diamonds. Also, a building was recently removed which opens up the view. But, we found it nearly by accident. We knew only that a park existed so we looked for the tell-tale signs near one of the diamonds.
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| Fostoria Railroad Park |
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| Fostoria Railroad Park |
We actually missed the park as we drove into town. We were getting pretty disgusted when the "short range sensors" showed a promising combination of tracks and roads in the north-east corner of the triangle. Sure enough, we had gone down the wrong street on the way in and missed the tiny detail of an outhouse and picnic table. This we soon found on our last pass. As it turned out, this was probably the best corner to be in. We could see all three lines fairly clearly. In fact the tracks of two lines touched the gravel patch we parked on.
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| Fostoria Railroad Park |
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| Fostoria Railroad Park |
Our first trains were NS. A westbound was going by when we arrived and a switcher in the form of a high hood SD40-2 was playing on the other track. Not long afterwards a westbound with a UP leader went by. This was followed by a high hood pulling a local westward. Somewhere in this process a local woman railfan dropped by and informed us that her husband saw that an NS heritage unit (Virginian?) might be coming through from Bellevue. His best guess was 7pm for it to show up. Well, that got our interest. We were thinking of leaving. Now we knew where we'd be when the light died. Another railfan joined us too. He was a regular visitor to Fostoria and camped in his van. The usual trading of info and war stories ensued. The same woman had informed him too.
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| Fostoria Railroad Park |
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| Fostoria Railroad Park |
CSX was not idle. Their east-west line was pretty busy. I took plenty of cluttered pictures of trains going by the tower. Two trains slowed to make a turn north, right in front of us. At least one train came north and turned west. Before the light completely died, a southbound CSX came through. This one allowed me to get my first good shot of the latest logo, which I hadn't noticed before this stop.
When the light died, no heritage unit had been by yet. I recall that it was through in the wee hours according to reports. By then we were snoozing away in Lima, miles away, preparing for the next leg of our trip.
BC
We eventually found our way out of town. Lima is full of small neighborhoods with their own grid of streets. The way west was a small route directly west which would eventually lead to Lafayette, IN. We passed through countless small rural towns and began to see drying corn fields. Corn actually looked better in Maine this year. We kept the SPV atlas handy and our "short range sensors" (Magellan GPS) showed various rail lines crossing our route. In Gas City, IN we stopped at some crossing gates and encountered this lone TPandW unit crossing our path. 
Getting to Lafayette: We would have been fine except for detours and a few minor errors. No harm done but we drove many a mile across the grid road network of rural Indiana trying to go west. Detour signs led us astray and into Kokomo, IN. What a dump. NS was in the process of removing a branch in the vicinity and we kept crossing the branch in various states of dismantling. We went miles north and into town when the signs seemed to run out and we decided to go back and "play the grid" and make our own detour. This took us back toward Lafayette finally. Rural roads are in square grids to we just went one square south and paralleled our original route until we passed the expected detour. Country roads are pretty solitary but out there they were straight and well maintained. Some were gravel and some were paved. Unfortunately, not all are wide enough to pass when you encounter farm machinery. Eventually we arrived at Lafayette. The "short range sensors" got us to the Amtrak station.
The Homewood Railroad Park was worth everything it took to get there. We started on the west side of the tracks at the Amtrak and Metra station to get our bearings. Here we found the display unit and the station buildings. It also had some nice parking. We began our stay by photographing the frequent electric Metra commuter trains. We also saw some EJandE units kicking around the yard and a passing CN southbound featured a pair of blue LMS/IC units. It was just after 5pm so trains were about 7-10 minutes apart. Eventually we relocated to the east side of the tracks to where the railfan platform was located. The sun was on the wrong side but it wasn't that bad.
The Homewood platform is a great location to watch trains. We caught and EJandE local, a couple of CN southbounds and later a pair of Amtraks met at their platform. The location is relatively clean and safe. Plenty of traffic and police. A handy Starbucks is across the street. Metra has some parking and a bus pull out there next to a pedestrian underpass for the train station. We were the only ones using the plush platform. A scanner was squawking constantly, which was helpful. We couldn't make out much of the meaning but it sounded like there was plenty of car kicking in Markham Yard nearby. We did get some good clues about approaching freights and Amtrak through the clutter. For Amtrak, the 800 number was useful too.
The remaining shots are from the area. I took dozens of shots of the electrics trying to get something worthy or showing off. The few I have here are from those experimental angles. The signal bridge shots were tough because the trains flew by and timing was critical. I tried a few that included the Metra station too but many were badly timed. Luckily, there were many trains for trial and error.
