Jim’s Favorite Railroad

The Akron Railroads blog today features a remembrance of Jim Mastromatteo who died this week at age 60. Jim was a longtime member of the Akron Railroad Club and served as its secretary from 2016 to 2020. He counted a number of railroads as among his favorites but, arguably, the Wheeling & Lake Erie was his most favorite.

The photograph above is one he made in downtown Akron on the W&LE’s Akron Subdivision. I chose it in part because one of my memories of Jim was seeing his sitting next to this line near Summit Street one afternoon waiting for a train to come.

I also had considered using this image in my second Akron Railroads book and it was one of the last ones to be dropped from consideration. It is scanned from a slide. As far I know Jim always used slide film and never made the transition to digital photography.

Photograph by Jim Mastromatteo

Tags: Photographs of Akron railroads, Railroads of Akron Ohio, Wheeling & Lake Erie, Wheeling & Lake Erie locomotive power, Wheeling & Lake Erie locomotives, Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway, Wheeling & Lake Erie trains