Last Runs for Orange Blossom Cannonball

Making a back-up move in Tavares, Florida.

While vacationing in Florida I caught one of the last trips of the Tavares Eustis & Gulf steam train, the Orange Blossom Cannonball.

TE&G No. 2, a Baldwin 2-6-0 built in 1907, powered these final trips the weekend of Jan. 27-28 2017.

This scenic railway used the tracks of the Florida Central short line. It started operation in 2011 and an increase in trackage rights fees caused it to shut down this month.

The equipment has been used in movies such as True Grit, Appaloosa, and 3:10 to Yuma, among others. It is owned by the Reader Railroad of Arkansas and will be returned there.

I was fortunate to be vacationing for these last trips.

Article and Photographs by Todd Dillon

Ohio Turnpike Sets 2017 Construction Work

The Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission has approved a $121.4 million capital budget for 2017 that includes construction projects in Northeast Ohio.

The budget calls for pavement replacement and resurfacing, bridge rehabilitation and an investment of $714,000 in technology to prepare for a time when vehicles will be able to communicate with each other and the roadway.

Turnpike Executive Director Randy Cole said despite the road work there should be less congestion because there will be 25 percent fewer lane miles under construction.

“We heard loud and clear from our customers last summer. They want fewer orange barrels so we are carefully balancing customer preference with the pace of our program for improvements,”  Cole said in a statement.

To prepare for self-driving vehicles, the turnpike plans to deploy Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) (connected vehicle) technology.

This year it will be installed in the Boston and Amherst maintenance sections between mileposts 126.4 in Erie County (Berlin Township) and 187.5 in Portage County (Streetsboro).

Forty turnpike maintenance vehicles will be equipped with on-board units that will gather and supply data to managers monitoring the fleet’s activity.

Pavement replacement plans for 2017 include a 5-mile long section in the eastbound lanes in Sandusky County from milepost 90 to 95.9 (between Sandusky and Riley Townships).

Also slated to be replaced are 5-mile long sections in Erie County in the westbound lanes from milepost 107.3 to 112.45 (between Groton and Oxford Townships) and in Portage County from milepost 186.35 to 191.39 (between Streetsboro and Shalersville Township).

The pavement replacement budget for 2017 is $45.5 million.

Four 2017 resurfacing projects will cost $21.6 million. These projects will include resurfacing the pavement of the right and center lanes from milepost 69.3 to 74.15 (between Lake and Troy Townships) in Wood and Ottawa Counties and resurfacing all three lanes and both shoulders from milepost 136.1 to 144.1 in Lorain County (between Brownhelm and Elyria).

In Cuyahoga County, the left lane and left shoulder will be resurfaced from milepost 160.1 to 169.1 (between Strongsville and Broadview Heights) with construction taking place from August until October of 2017.

In addition, in Cuyahoga and Summit Counties, the interchange at Exit 173 (Akron/Cleveland) will undergo pavement reconstruction, repairs and resurfacing of select ramps from May through October.

The turnpike plans to spend  $16.6 billion in bridge repairs and rehabilitations.

The work includes deck replacements, miscellaneous bridge rehabilitations, and substructure repair at various sites, including five deck replacements and bridge removal at mileposts 122.3, 128.5, 132.4 138, 138.2 (bridge removal) and 145.8 in Erie and Lorain Counties.

In Cuyahoga County, the Ohio Route 252 bridge over the turnpike at milepost 156.9 (Olmsted Falls) will undergo a bridge deck replacement and rehabilitation.

In Summit and Portage Counties, bridge bearings, joints and decks will be replaced on overhead bridges at mileposts 178, 179.5 and 199.2.

In Mahoning County, six mainline bridges and one ramp bridge from milepost 222.8 to 232.9 will undergo bearing and deck joint replacements and two bridge deck replacements are planned at milepost 240.8 east and westbound.

Amtrak and Shadows at Bort Road

One in a series of posts about photographs that I created last summer.

It was Labor Day weekend 2016. I got up before dawn to drive to North East, Pennsylvania, to catch Amtrak’s eastbound Lake Shore Limited.

If I waited too much longer in the year, there would no longer be good daylight at Bort Road when No. 48 passed by.

It is due out of Erie, Pennsylvania, at 7:20 a.m. and gets to North East about 20 minutes later.

The sun angle was still pretty low when No. 48 showed up right about on time. That meant that the bridge carrying Bort Road over the CSX tracks still was casting shadows on the rails.

Somehow, I didn’t mind that because it gave the photo a little interest of its own.

Article and Photograph by Craig Sanders

Dillon Named as ARRC VP Emeritus

J. Gary Dillon was named vice president emeritus by the Akron Railroad Club at its Feb. 27 meeting.

Dillon had indicated to the officers during a recent board meeting that he no longer wished to serve as the club’s vice president.

Since joining the ARRC on June 26, 1947, Dillon has held all officer positions except for Bulletin editor.

He was elected treasurer in November 1948 and has since served as president in 1958, 1959, 1967, 1968 and 1969. Dillon was elected vice president in 1975, a post he had held since then.

Dillon was named a lifetime ARRC member in July 2010. The Akron native is the last ARRC member left who joined the club in its early years.

The ARRC traces its history to the 1936 formation of a committee to sponsor railway excursions. That committee a year later became the Eastern Ohio Chapter of the National Railway Society.

The Eastern Ohio chapter surrendered its charter in December 1945.

Some members elected to form a new group known as the Northeastern Ohio Railfans, which organized on Feb. 9, 1946.

That group reorganized again a year later as the Akron Railroad Club, which came into existence on March 27, 1947.

The club is currently seeking a volunteer to agree to serve as its vice president.

If You Post Your Photographs in Social Media, It’s Almost a Sure Bet That Someone Will Steal Them

If you post photographs on social media you run the risk that someone will copy and use your work without your permission. Chances are they won’t even give you credit so no one will know that it is your image.

In theory that is a violation of copyright law, but like speeding on an expressway it is a law that is widely flaunted.

I’m not sure whether to be angry or flattered when someone steals my photos.

At times I’ve been amused. That was the case when someone posted on Trainorders.com a photograph of a flier on the wood bridge carrying Bort Road over the CSX Erie West Subdivision tracks near North East, Pennsylvania.

A group seeking to save the bridge from removal put on that flier an image that I made of a CSX train passing beneath the bridge. That photo had been posted on the Akron Railroad Club blog.

I was less amused when I discovered the organizers of a Michigan railroad conference lifted an image I made last July of Amtrak’s Blue Water at Durand, Michigan.

An educational group should know better than to steal a photograph without permission or giving credit.

On occasion, someone sends me an email asking permission to use one of my photographs.

The Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers did that for an image I made of an Amtrak train in Kalamazoo. My images have been used with permission in professional presentations and in the magazine of a rails-to-trails group.

But All Aboard Ohio stole a photograph I made of the Lake Shore Limited at Bort Road and published it on Page 1 of its newsletter. They did give me credit, though.

Some photographers won’t post on social media because they hate having their photographs used without their permission.

Others post stern copyright warnings, but those may be useless because it is easy to copy and paste online content.

Those who steal copyrighted work are largely unapologetic about it. Supposedly, some people believe that if something is online it is in the “public domain.”

There may be some truth to that, but I see it a different way. There is larceny in the hearts of many, if not most Americans.

Some scrupulously honest people will refrain from theft out of principle or moral obligation, but far more others have the attitude of “I’ll take what I can until someone stops me.”

The cost of stopping people who steal photographs can be high and the rewards low or nonexistent even if you prevail in a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Using the legal system is not free.

Many, if not most, who “steal” the photographs of others are not making money from the theft.

They see what they did as providing an illustration. I can look past those situations, but have a harder time with situations such as the blogger who copied an image I made inside an Amtrak dining car and used it to illustrate a travelogue about his Amtrak trip. The post suggested it was his photograph.

I received an email from someone I don’t know alerting me to that theft and providing a link to the site moderator to seek removal of the image.

I was told this blogger has a reputation of stealing other people’s images. Although I thanked the watchdog, I wound up not doing anything about the theft.

In part that is because I have adopted the philosophy of David Oroszi, a highly-respected railroad photographer from Dayton.

He once wrote that if someone is able to profit from stealing one of his photographs, well then good for them.

He did not elaborate on why he felt that way, but it might be a combination of understanding that the battle might not be worth waging and feeling comfortable with his own success as a photographer.

Dave’s images have appeared in numerous books, including several he has co-authored. Magazines regularly pay him for use of his photographs.

He knows what retailers know that you do what you can to protect your property but some loss from theft is part of the cost of doing business.

Ohio Turnpike Set Usage Record in 2016

The Ohio Turnpike hosted a record number of 54.9 million vehicles in 2016, which broke the previous record of 53.4 million set in 2015.

The turnpike said that during 2016 it recorded the second-most number of vehicle miles traveled in its history at 3.037 billion, which was 2.6 million less than the record set in 2006.

Turnpike officials attributed the increase in travel to an improving economy, relatively low gas prices and mild weather.

During 2016 the turnpike said it posted a 2.2 percent gain in the percentage of vehicles that used E-ZPass®.

In 2016, 57.1 percent of all vehicles used E-ZPass, saving an average of 33 percent on tolls compared to cash-paying customers. Tolls for E-ZPass customers are less than for most cash-paying vehicles.

During 2016 the turnpike saw an 8.8 percent gain in the number of passenger cars using E-ZPass and a 3.1 percent rise in the number of commercial vehicles using it.

Warm Memories of NKP 767 in the Valley

Nickel Plate Road No. 765, operating as No. 767, approaches Pleasant Valley Road on Saturday, Sept. 24.

Reflecting on past steam trips in the Valley at Indigo Lake.

I waited for quite a while to get the NKP 767 crossing the Cuyahoga River north of Peninsula.

Now that winter is here and the warm days of summer and early autumn in 2016 are just another memory, how about some warm memories to take the chill out of the air?

Here are three images of Nickel Plate Road 767 — which is actually NKP 765 — when it was running on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad last September.

All were among my favorite images of the NKP 767 in action, but for various reasons they didn’t make the cut when it came time to post those photographs.

But I kept them with the idea of posting them during the winter. Perhaps NKP 765 willl return to the CVSR in 2017, but that remains to be seen. If it does come back as NKP 767?

Even if it doesn’t, we’ll always have our memories and photographs of when it was the 767.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

C&O 1309 Tickets Sales Have Been Strong

Tickets sales for excursions behind the restored Chesapeake & Ohio No. 1309 have been good enough to prompt the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad to add trips to accommodate more passengers.

The additional trips behind the 2-6-6-2 Mallet will be run in the latter half of 2017.

“At the moment, we’re selling about $2,000 worth of tickets per day. Once word more generally gets out, it will rise steadily,” project manager John Hankey told Trains magazine.

The 1309 has been in restoration since the WMSR purchased it in June 2014 from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum.

The WMRS is aiming at a July 1 inaugural run for the locomotive. Hankey said the Federal Railroad Administration is expected to complete a boiler inspection soon and a hydrostatic test could be undertaken by the end of February.

Flues, tubes and applicances must still be attached and Hankey expects trial runs under steam to be conducted in May.

Penn Central’s Stock Certificates Were Elaborate, Colorful, But Today are Mere Collector’s Items

When Penn Central filed for bankruptcy protection in June 1970 it was not only the largest business failure in America to date, but it rendered stock in the beleaguered company all but worthless.

One footnote to the Penn Central story is that when the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads merged on Feb. 1, 1968, the company was officially known as the Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company, a name that didn’t last long and was shortened to Penn Central Transportation Company.

As seen above the stock certificates came in two colors, blue and brown. Shareholders also had the option of mixing the two shades.

Not unlike many stock certificates, Penn Central stock had an elaborate appearance, featuring a profile of the Roman god Mercury. He was the god of financial gain, commerce, messages/communication, travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves.

Given some of the financial shenanigans that PC management practiced during their trouble company’s life, perhaps the choice of Mercury was appropriate given their embrace of the latter two of Mercury’s traits.

Mercury appears amid scenes of a city skyline and various forms of transportation.

Because the PRR was the nominal survivor of the merger, it’s date of origin is listed toward the top on the right hand side.

From a legal perspective, the PRR had changed its name to Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company.

That didn’t last long. On May 8, 1968, the company name changed to Penn Central Transportation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Penn Central Company.

For awhile, PC paid dividends to stock holders in an effort to create the illusion of success.

In reality, the railroad ran up a deficit of $2.8 million in its first year and it only grew from there, reaching $83 million in 1969. On June 21, 1970, PC entered bankruptcy proceedings.

At the time, Penn Central was the nation’s sixth largest company.

We all know that many of the railroad operations of PC were turned over to Consolidated Rail Corporation on April 1, 1976. Some PC lines not picked up by Conrail were saved, but others simply never saw rail service again and were eventually abandoned.

Penn Central Company survived the bankruptcy. It had considerable real estate holdings and eventually evolved into a financial services and insurance company later known as American Financial Group.

Today, Penn Central stock is a collectors item. One website that deals in old stocks and bonds is offering PC stock certificates online for $6.95, marked down from $10.95. On eBay, PC stock certificates on Thursday ranged in asking price from $2.19 to $8.19.

The stock certificates shown above are from the collection of Jack Norris.

ARRC Officers Set 2017 Slate of Activities

The 2017 officers of the Akron Railroad club are (from left) Jim Mastromatteo, secretary; Craig Sanders (seated in front), president; Paul Havasi, treasurer; Marty Surdyk, editor; and J. Gary Dillon, vice president.

I didn’t think that the Akron Railroad Club officer’s meeting held last Sunday would last all that long.

Sure, we had a long list of items to discuss, but most them involved merely finalizing the dates for activities that we’ve had before.

We decided on the following activities and dates: Member’s night and pizza party (Feb. 25), Dave McKay Day in Berea (April 1), longest day in Bellevue (June 25), summer picnic at Warwick Park in Clinton (July 30), outing in Vermilion (Aug. 26), and the end of year dinner (Dec. 2).

The member’s night was set for a Saturday in February because of schedule conflicts at the church. The social hall is not available on the fourth Friday night of February due to a church activity.

We could meet on Feb. 17, but the social hall isn’t available on that night, either, because it will have been set up for the annual spaghetti supper that the church is having the next day. We would have to meet in a Sunday School classroom.

But we could have the social hall in the evening on Saturday, Feb. 25 if we wanted it. The officers elected to take that offer.

Last summer the club did well financially in having a silent auction of books from the collection of the late William Surdyk.

At the time, someone suggested we have a similar event for members wishing to unload railroad-related artifacts and memorabilia.

We liked that idea and quickly settled on having it at our July meeting.

However, working out the details proved time-consuming as we discussed rules and issues surrounding an activity the club has never sponsored before.

Those ground rules and guidelines are still being worked out and will be shared with the membership at a later date. But the event has a name: Roundhouse Rubble Auction.

But in essence, you will need to give Marty Surdyk by the May meeting a list of items you wish to sell.

Sellers have the option of setting a minimum bid – known as a reserve price – on their item.

Unless specified otherwise, items placed for sale will become property of the Akron Railroad Club if not sold at the silent auction and be offered for sale at train shows at which the ARRC has a table.

However, sellers have the right to specify that they want to take back their item(s) that do not sell during the auction.

The officers also discussed having a steam-themed event in September.

If the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad has Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765 back, we will replicate the picnic that we had in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park on the last day that the 765 operated in September 2016. It was one of our best-attended events of the year.

But we also discussed two other potential club outings. We’ve learned that a working steam locomotive might enter tourist train service this year on a short line near Buffalo, New York.

If it operates as we suspect it will, out of Eden, New York, we will look into chartering a bus and traveling to see that locomotive as well as the nearby Arcade & Attica steam train.

The other possibility involves reviving the overnight outing with a destination of Cumberland, Maryland, to see Chesapeake & Ohio 2-6-6-2 No. 1309 in operation.

We expect to wrap up 2017 with the fifth annual end of year dinner at Beef ‘O’ Brady’s restaurant in Stow. Mark Demaline has agreed to do the program.

Mark is the newest member of the ARRC and a retired railroad executive who worked for CSX and the Wheeling & Lake Erie.

He is also an accomplished railroad photographer who presented a program to the ARRC a few years ago about railroads in Montana.