Gray Lady Visits Northeast Ohio

Norfolk Southern heritage locomotive 8025 leads westbound train No. 205 over the former Nickel Plate Trestle in Cleveland on Saturday morning, Sept. 1, 2012. The locomotive pays tribute to the Monongahela Railroad.

Norfolk Southern’s Monongahela Railroad heritage locomotive passed through Northeast Ohio on Saturday morning (Sept. 1, 2012) on the head of train 205, a westbound intermodal.

The locomotive had passed through the area eastward earlier in the week and, as expected, it turned and came back west from New York State.

The 8025 is unusual in that it was not among the original batch of heritage locomotives that NS announced earlier this year. It also is the only heritage locomotive that was not ordered new with the intention of being a heritage locomotive.

Instead, the 8025 was an existing locomotive that was painted into the Monongahela livery.

I went out to chase the train with my friend Adam Barr. We first caught up with it at Abby Road in Cleveland just west of the trestle over the Flats on the NS Cleveland District (former Nickel Plate Road). There was a crowd of photographers here including Akron Railroad Club member Roger Durfee.

We easily caught up with train 205 at Olmsted Falls but had a hard time catching it west of there. Our initial plan to get the train at Bay Bridge west of Sandusky didn’t work.  It was crossing the bridge and causeway as we arrived on nearby U.S. Route 2. We settled for a crossing west of Port Clinton. By then the weather had deteriorated considerably to cloudy and overcast.

After photographing the 205, we went into Port Clinton for a late lunch and shot a few more trains at Bay Bridge.

Photographs by Craig Sanders

Bridges, bridges everywhere. The NS 8025 passes through a maze of bridges in the Cleveland Flats.

Heading west on Track 2 at Olmsted Falls after a crew change at Rockport Yard.

Cruising along Three Mile Crossing Road west of Port Clinton.

Tags: bridge photographs, Monongahela Railway, Nickel Plate Road, Norfolk Southern, NS 8025, NS Monongahela heritage locomotive, NS Monongahela heritage unit, NS motive power