Wheeling Bookends to Bellevue Day

What does he mean by Bookends? Has he gone mad?

Actually, I thought it summed up quite well the annual Bellevue day of the Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts.

The first train of the day as sighted by member Steve LaConte at 7:35 a.m. was led by Wheeling & Lake Erie No.  7001 heading eastbound out of town toward Norwalk.

The last train sighted by member Marty Surdyk at 8:39 p.m. was W&LE 7016 and 7008 on an empty stone train heading to Parkertown.

In between W&LE trains, attendees saw 25 NS trains that featured locomotives of six of the seven Class 1 railroads (No CSX).

Yes, there was a lot of black, but the horse did provide one heritage unit and one special paint job during the day.

The Central of Georgia H unit was seen twice, coming into town on Homestead (Toledo) to Bellevue turn B45 at 11:39 a.m. on the lead and leaving town on the same train at 3:42 p.m. trailing.

The 18M, which comes off the Toledo District and goes south on the Sandusky District, had NS 4003 trailing, which is one of the gray and black DC to AC conversion units. It went past after a crew change at Klines at 10:48 a.m.

Foreign power leaders included Union Pacific No. 3045 leading 194 south on the Sandusky District at 4:36 p.m. and a pair of BNSFs on 195 heading into the yard at 6:25 p.m.

We also had a CN leader on ethanol train 6W4, which headed into town from Sandusky and left heading south toward Marion.

Three trains had distributed power. A double coal train running as 746 had two NS units up front, three in the middle and two more on the rear. It’s strange to see coal going south at Bellevue, after seeing coal going exclusively north for so many years.

Train 178 off the Sandusky District had three up front and three more in the middle, while its counterpart 179 had two up front and one in the middle.

For fans of smaller trains, the NS local that serves a customer west of the yard on the Toledo District went past at 4:56 p.m. with NS 3320 and one covered hopper. They came back at 7:03 p.m. with one covered hopper in tow.

I counted 12 attendees who came and went during the day. Steve LaConte and Bruce Gage were

the early birds, while yours truly kept watch until about 8:45 p.m.

Article by Marty Surdyk

Tags: Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts, Norfolk Southern, NS in Bellevue Ohio, Railfanning in Bellevue Ohio