If you lived in Northeast Ohio in the early 1980s you might have chased the Cuyahoga Valley Line.
The CVL used former Grand Trunk Western 2-8-2 No. 4070 to pull its excursion trains through the then-named Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area.
It would have been easy to have taken steam in the valley for granted then.
The 4070 had been a mainstay on most weekends on the CVL since August 1975.
Sure, it would be sidelined every so often due to mechanical issues and for two years in the middle to late 1980s no trains ran at all due to the line having been abandoned.
But the National Park Service bought the railroad and steam returned, although only for a few years.
The 4070 hasn’t run since September 1990 and the CVL has given way to the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.
In the past decade visiting steam locomotives have been a regular feature of fall so it is still possible to get images similar to one of the 4070 steaming into Akron on Oct. 17, 1981.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Tags: Cuyahoga Valley Line, Grand Trunk Western 4070, Robert Farkas photography, steam locomotives
akronrrclub.wordpress.com 
April 29, 2020 at 11:45 am |
Actually, getting a photo from that angle of a train coming into Akron is really hard now. That photo was taken from the southbound side of the “Wye” bridge, and the entire length of the bridge now has high security fencing, with openings too small for most camera lens to stick through.