Catching a Couple on CSX

Westbound Q009 is racing the approaching shadows as it races toward County Line Road in Unionville. If only the hole in the clouds had been a little wider.

The Spirit of Cincinnati leads eastbound Q008 at Davis Road east of Perry.

We were on our way back to Cleveland from Ashtabula, but chose not to drive on Interstate 90.

I was monitoring my scanner and listening for any nearby CSX trains. I had the Norfolk Southern frequency on, too, but we missed an eastbound NS stack train.

As we approached Unionville, we turned onto County Line Road. I had heard a detector go off and a train was calling signals. But was it going east or west?

It was the westbound Q009 with a new ET44AH on the point. GE Transportation has been releasing these Tier 4 compliant locomotives en mass over the past couple of months.

This would be the first time I’d seen one of these units on the point of a train. I posted a photo of this unit earlier.

After bagging the Q009, we continued westward. Another CSX train was calling signals and, again, we didn’t know if it was going east or west.

We chose the Davis Road crossing to photograph this train, which turned out to be the eastbound Q008. On the point was CSX 5500, the Spirit of Cincinnati.

There was backlighting, so I sought to emphasize the clouds, which were plentiful.

It would be the last train we saw that day. Darkness was coming and I had to get back home.

But not before making a swing through Perry to check the NS signals. They were all red in both directions.

Yet that short little detour did yield the information that the former New York Central signal bridge over the CSX tracks has been removed.

I and countless other photographers have used it as a photo prop for years. It has been a while since I’ve been in Perry so it may have been taken down months ago.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

 

Tags: CSX, CSX Erie West Subdivision, CSX trains, ET44AH