Welcome to Akron Railroads

Welcome to Akron Railroads, formerly known as the Akron Railroad Club Blog, a site once connected with the Akron Railroad Club. The ARRC meets every month but December in Akron, Ohio, at the New Horizons Christian Church.

This site is not formally connected with the ARRC but instead serves as an archive of past postings about ARRC meetings and activities as well as railfanning adventures and photographs posted by some members.

Also included in the site are historical overviews of the railroads of Akron and Northeast Ohio as well as some news and information about current railroad operations in that region.

For more up to date information about the ARRC, visit the club’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AkronRailroadClub/

One Day at Ashtabula on Penn Central

The wayback machine has taken us to August 1975 in Ashtabula. A westbound Penn Central manifest freight led by F7A No. 1800 is rolling past the former New York Central passenger station. Note that the mainline tracks could use some maintenance. The line later became a key route for Conrail and today is the Erie West Subdivision of CSX.

Photograph by Richard Jacobs

Michigan Golden Oldies Memories

This “golden oldie” brings back memories of a trip that Mike Ondecker and I made almost 50 years ago. It is August 1974, and five FM H16-66 road switchers are in the Chicago & North Western engine facility in Escanaba, Michigan. C&NW 170 has the older locomotive style body. The only non-FM is 1594 (EMD GP7).
Photograph by Robert Farkas

Schmidt to Present at Marion Railfan Meeting

Classic Trains magazine editor Brian Schmidt will be the presenter at the May 18 meeting of the Mation Railfan Society.

Schmidt, an Ohio native, will show slides made by the late J. David Ingles of trains in Southeast Wisconsin between 1980 and 1993.

The meeting will take place at Marion Union Station and begin at 7 p.m.

If time permits there will be an open digital projector for audience members to show images. These presentations should be 30 minutes or less.

The images should be contained on a USB or external hard drive. A laptop computer, projector and screen will be provided.

All railfans are welcome at MRS meetings.

Presenters Set for Michigan History Conference

The program lineup for the 17^th Michigan Railroad History Conference has been released.

The conference is set for Oct. 12 at Albion College in Albion, Michigan.

The featured speaker will be Edward A. Burkhardt, president of Rail World, who will be speaking about the Wabash Railroad in Michigan in its final days.

Other presenters and their presentation titles are Gary Kadau, The History of Grosse Ile’s Railroad, 1873-1929; Kevin P. Keefe, Michigan in the Viewfinder; Norman Krentel, How Regulation Affected Michigan’s Interurbans; Mark Worrall, Exploring the Relationships of Copper Mines and Railroads in the Western South Range of the Upper Peninsula; Martin Hershock, Booted and Spurred, Railroads, the Open Range, and Rebellion in Antebellum Michigan; Ronald Bretz, Rudy Bladel, The Railroad Killer; and Paul Trap, The Fennville Train Robbery.

Presentations will be held at the Norris Auditorium of Albion College’s Science Complex, 900 W. Michigan St. in Albion.

The $70 registration fee includes lunch plus beverages and refreshments during the morning and afternoon breaks.

A post-conference social event will begin at 5:30 p.m. at Cascarelli’s of Albion, 116 South Superior St.

On Friday will be an optional field trip by bus led by Norm Kerentel to view the remains of the former Albion-Battle Creek-Jackson interurban railway.

The all-day tour will trace the route of a Michigan Railway interurban line. There will be a lunch stop.

Highlights will include the site of the company headquarters and shops, an electrical substation and remaining fragments of the right-of-way.

The bus will depart on Friday, Oct. 11 at 9 a.m. from the parking lot at the rear of the Courtyard by Marriott in Albion. It will return at 5 p.m. The fee is $60 and does not include any food or beverages.

For more information and updates see www.michiganrailroadhistory.org or visit the groups’s Facebook page by searching Michigan Railroad History Conference.

Questions can be addressed to Doug Johnson, chair, or Jerry Becker, registrar, through Michigan.Railroad.History.Conf@gmail.com

Patriot Rail Donates Steam Locomotive Parts

Short line holding company Patriot Rail has donated 37,000 pounds of steam-era parts and supplies worth about $200,000 to the Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation.

The parts were previously stored at the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific roundhouse in Anaconda, Montana.

The donation includes parts, tools, and other supplies including an assortment of brand-new piping and fasteners from the steam era that are still stored in their original wooden crates.

Also included were four 35-ton whiting locomotive jacks, a lathe large enough to turn pistons and rods, and an Allen journal brass boring machine, the last known purpose-built journal brass boring machine in existence.

The Kentucky group is seeking to restore to operating condition former Chesapeake & Ohio 2-8-4 No. 2716.

Patriot Rail decided to donate the parts due to its vacating the former BA&P buildings in Anaconda. 

CSX in Greenwich Two for Tuesday

Greenwich is the western end of the CSX New Castle Subdivision. It is where four CSX subdivisions meet.

It also is a popular railfanning spot and the subject of today’s two for Tuesday feature. Both images were made on April 21, 2011.

In the top image CSX 7874 is Cleveland-bound crossing the CSX line from Willard to New Castle, Pennsylvania.

In the bottom image, CSX 1 is eastbound on the New Castle Sub. The unit wears Spirit of West Virginia to the left of the “1” on the cab.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

Snowy Day at Warwick Tower

A westbound Baltimore & Ohio train passes Warwick Tower in February 1972 on a winter day.

Photograph by Richard Jacobs

Seeing Blue in Alliance

There is a whole lot of motive power wearing Conrail blue in this power move in Alliance on May 12, 1984. The view is railroad eastward on the Fort Wayne Line.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

One Day on Conrail at Collinwood

Randy Faris took this photo of CR 6735 as it sat in Conrail’s Collinwood Yard in Cleveland, Ohio on May 19, 1985.

Pa. Groups Win NRHS Heritage Grants

Two Pennsylvania preservation groups have received heritage grants from the National Railway Historical Society.

The Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Chapter NRHS in Scranton received $4,200 to upgrade exterior lighting on a former Delaware Lackawanna & Western passenger station platform and freight station at Moscow, Pennsylvania.

The Corry Rail and Industrial Legacy Society and Museum in Corry, Pennsylvania, received $5,000 to improve shop buildings housing reconstruction of a 1903 narrow-gauge, wood-frame, T-boiler, box cab Climax geared locomotive, serial A-313, from Wild Goose gold mining Railroad, Nome, Alaska.

NRHS said it is awarding $125,000 this year to 28 non-profit organizations for railroad preservation projects.

The organization said that since 1991 it has awarded more than $1.2 million in 398 grants for preservation and restoration of historic railroad structures, locomotives, railcars, photos, and archival documents.