Welcome to the Akron Railroad Club Blog

The Akron Railroad Club business meeting of May 28, 2010. The club meets monthly except in December on the fourth Friday of the month. (Photograph by Richard Jacobs)

The Akron Railroad Club has more than 100 members who meet monthly in Akron, Ohio, to share their passion for railroad operations and history.  On our blog you will find information about our meetings, activities, how to join us, and news about railroads and railroad oriented organizations.  On the feature pages you will find information about popular Ohio railfan hotspots within a couple of hours drive from Akron, stories about railfan outings, trip reports and special reports about railroad operations and railfan events. Most features are amply illustrated with photographs.  Take a look around and enjoy yourself. There is always something new to read so come back often. Better yet, come to one of our monthly meetings or join us at one of our many events. We look forward to meeting you.

Next Meeting: Jan. 27. Program by Steve Tichenal

Next Activity: To Be Announced in late January 2012

Next ARRC Meeting is Jan. 27

The Mahoning Street coal dock and roundhouse in Cleveland of the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway. (Photo courtesy of the W&LE Collection of Cleveland State University)

Tucked away in file boxes in the special collections of the Cleveland State University library are more than 1,500 photographs of the original Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway. Most of the collection is images of bridges that the railroad had made in the late 1920s as part of a bridge inventory. The collection also includes a few other gems involving trains and such structures as stations and yard offices.

Stephen Titchenal will show a few of those images during his half of the program at the next Akron Railroad Club meeting on Friday, Jan. 27.

Tichenal’s program, which will be a PowerPoint presentation, will focus on the Cleveland end of the W&LE. He will show where the images were taken and, in some cases, a then and now photo. The archival photographs were originally collected by John B. Corns, who later sold them to the CSU library.

Also part of the program will be some “live” examples of using GIS technology to trace abandoned rights-of-way. Resources include railroad valuation maps, historic aerial photos, topographic maps, plat/property/tax maps and high resolution digital elevation data. Although processed using a GIS, research can be shared using free applications such as Google Earth. Smart phones even allow the researcher to easily take some of these resources in the field, showing your current location on the historic aerial photo or map. An examples of Tichenal’s work is available at http://railsandtrails.com/pdf/ 

The ARRC meeting will begin at 8 p.m. with a half-hour business meeting followed by the program at approximately 8:45 p.m. The club meets at the New Horizons Christian Church, 290 Darrow Road, in Akron.

Some members gather at about 6 p.m. for dinner at Duffy’s Grill, 231 Darrow Road. Following the meeting, members meet at the Eat ‘n Park restaurant at Howe and Main streets in Cuyahoga Falls for a late dinner, desert or early breakfast.

Visitors are always welcome at Akron Railroad Club meetings.

‘Snowfanning’ the Norfolk Southern

Braving the elements again today, I went “snowfanning” on Norfolk Southern in Elyria and North Ridgeville. The NS action was very good and here’s a sampling of some what I caught. The first four photographs are in Elyria in and around MP 205 (Amtrak Station) and the last is in North Ridgeville at the Race Road crossing.

Photographs by Dan Davidson

2012 ARRC Events Announced

A ride on the Cuhayhoga Valley Scenic Railroad, a longest day outing to Fostoria and an overnight trip to Indiana will highlight the activities of the Akron Railroad Club in 2012.

The club’s officers met on Jan. 15 to plan the year’s events. The first non-meeting activity will be a trip on the CVSR in March on a date to be decided.

The annual Dave McKay photo outing in Berea will be held on Saturday, April 7. The outing is in memory of the late McKay, who served as ARRC president for several years before his death in late 2004.

The officers are reprising an activity that the club has done in past years of having a photo/railfanning outing on Memorial Day weekend. The event will be on May 27. ARRC members will travel to New London and Greenwich for a day of railfanning on CSX.

The longest day outing will be in Fostoria on June 24. The city of Fostoria began work last year on constructing a railfan park. Fostoria is the site of the crossing of two busy CSX routes. A Norfolk Southern route also comes through town.

This year’s summer picnic will be held at Willis Park in Bedford, which is adjacent to the NS mainline between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

The overnight trip has been set for Labor Day weekend and will focus on the area around Waterloo, Ind. The NS Chicago line passes through Waterloo, which is also an Amtrak stop. Aside from NS and Amtrak trains, the Chicago Line also sees Canadian Pacific run-through trains. The CSX mainline to Chicago is a a few miles south, so participants have the option of going there as well.

The dates of the overnight weekend are Sept. 1-3.

Officers discussed but did not set dates for a fall activity. Among the possibilities is a bus trip to Crossroad Village in Flint, Mich., and riding/photographing the Huckleberry Railroad.

The Christmas banquet will be held on Dec. 1 at the Martin Center of the University of Akron.  The annual member’s night was set for Nov. 10. Members will be invited to show 36 slides or digital images. The suggested theme is a salute to Norfolk Southern, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary. However, members are free to create their own theme.  The officers decided to impose a $5 cover charge for the event, which will include pizza, soda and snacks.

Presenters at the monthly meetings this year will include Dave Mangold, Cody Zamostny, Todd Dillon, Craig Sanders and Roger Durfee. A “tag team” program titled “Akron: My Hometown” will be part of the June program. Program slots are still available to members for May, July and August.

Riding as a Passenger — For Now

Sam Sponseller gave me a heads up on a unique movement with CSX train 382. CSX units 5453 and 7723 were eastbound passing Lagrange at about 4:30 p.m.

In the consist were two GE Class 70 locomotives being transported on flat cars. These “Freightliner” units numbered 70019 and 70020 are en route to the United Kingdom. 

Sam told me about some scanner chatter in which the train crew members were joking with another train about their “unique” freight move and how they will be “all over the Internet” today.

I am sure they will.

Article and Photographs by Dan Davidson

 

 

Tooling Around in Akron, Alliance

A former BN "green machine" leads passes the area where the Erie Lackawanna Yard was located in Akron. It is leading a westbound CSX ethanol train. (Photographs by Richard Thompson)

Some weekends you just wind up staying close to home. And that’s fine because you never know what you might get there. Akron Railroad Club member Richard Thompson and his fellow ARRC cohorts spent a Saturday in Rich’s hometown of Akron and then ventured out to Alliance the next day. Although they spent much of their time in town, they did give chase to a coke train on the Bayard Line.

To read Rich’s account of the outing and to view a gallery of photographs, click on the link below.

http://akronrrclub.wordpress.com/trackside-tales/tooling-around-akron-alliance/

The ABC job catches up with the rear of the ethanol train. Both were headed westward.

Deep Snow in Perry

An eastbopund Norfolk Southern intermodal train splits the signals at Perry on Monday, Jan. 16,2012. (Photographs by Craig Sanders)

Akron Railroad Club members Craig Sanders and Ed Ribinskas had Monday off and headed for Perry, Ohio, to get some snow action photographs. They were not disappointed. CSX and NS action was steady.

Perry had received heavy snow on Saturday and most of it was still around on Monday morning. To read Craig’s account of the outing and to view more photographs, click on the link below.

http://akronrrclub.wordpress.com/trackside-tales/deep-snow-in-perry/

Having finished plowing the deep snow off the siding, the CSX maintenance workers now had to dig down to find the rails. They used shovels and a leaf blower.

Craig and Ed took advantage of one of the "roads" that CSX crews had plowed to walk down to the long unusued signal bridge spanning the tracks. Shown is an eastbound CSX intermodal train.

Snow, NS Action on a Bellevue Sunday

Went to Bellevue on Sunday to catch some mid-winter Norfolk Southern action. Things got busy for a while, particularly on the New Haven Connection to/from Fostoria. Train 262 is eastbound at New Haven, but all other photographs were taken at the new and improved Mini-Plant.

Photographs by Dan Davidson

 

 

 

CVSR Lands $3.2M Federal Grant

Volunteers load bicyles aboard a Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad train on Sept. 25, 2011, at Boston Mill. The railroad announced this week it has received a federal grant that will help refurbish a baggage car that carries bikes. (Photograph by Craig Sanders)

The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad announced on Tuesday that it will receive a $3.2 million grant from the federal government to fund construction projects on the line that operates through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

The grant is part of $40.8 million being awarded nationally as part of the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit in Parks program, which is jointly administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Forest Service. It is named after the former congressman and U.S. senator from Maryland.

The $3.2 million grant to the CVSR will:

• Install a pedestrian bridge at the Rockside Road Boarding Area in Independence.

• Pay to purchase a baggage car that will be rebuilt to provide electrical power for lighting, heat and air conditioning.

• Upgrade a 46-year-old locomotive to reduce exhaust by 90 percent and fuel consumption by 60 percent, and extend its operating life up to 30 years.

• Overhaul a fully accessible passenger car. Improvements will include new wheelchair lifts and the addition of wheelchair-friendly seats.

• Rehab a baggage car to better carry passengers bicycles.

Kicking Up Some Snow at Olmsted Falls

It has been a strange January in Northeast Ohio. But things got back to normal, somewhat, last Saturday with a snow storm that blanketed the region. Dan Davidson spent the afternoon at the Olmsted Falls depot where the Norfolk Southern action was kicking up snow.

Among the sites were two elephant-style lashups. Also passing by was one of the few remaining Conrail units and a high nose SD40.

Photographs by Dan Davidson

 

Snow . . . and ICE at Perry

The remnants of the high pressure system that brought sunshine to Northeastern Ohio over the weekend following Saturday’s snowstorms lingered over the region on Monday morning before giving way to cloudy skies and warmer temperatures. With Monday being Martin Luther King Jr. day and a holiday where I work, it was an ideal time to catch some snow action.

Fellow Akron Railroad Club member Ed Ribinskas and I headed for Perry where we managed to find a parking spot next to the CSX tracks. Lake County was particularly hard hit by the Saturday storm, with some areas getting up to 2 feet of snow. Perry was one of those places with deep snow.

To be sure, the snow had packed down by Monday morning, but there was still plenty enough of the white stuff around to make for some interesting photography. We had scarcely parked when we heard horns to the west, which signaled what turned out to be the first of three eastbound intermodal trains running in rapid sucession.

We had heard the dispatcher on the radio tell a K symbol train at Collinwood yard that he would be following a couple of eastbound van trains.

Soon enough the K train showed up and added some ICE to the scene. OK, so technically these are Canadian Pacific locomotives and not Iowa, Chicago & Eastern units because the former has controlled the latter since 2008. 

Still, it looked like an ICE train pulling ethanol tank cars. Leading the way was SD40-2 No. 6367, the City of New Ulm, wearing Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern markings. Trailing was No. 6445, also an SD40-2, the City of Bettendorf, in a traditional ICE livery.

The train lumbered through Perry, leaving a swirling mist of snow in its wake. Yes, the ICE had been nice, real nice.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders