KCS on CSX Two for Tuesday

It was a sunny October Sunday in 2010. I was out with Roger Durfee and we had in mind catching some action on the CSX New Castle Subdivision.

Roger learned somehow that a westbound CSX coal train had a Kansas City Southern leader. Then, as now, KCS motive power was not unheard of in Northeast Ohio, but it wasn’t that common, either.

Roger turned his Jeep eastward and we intercepted the train at Newton Falls, seen in the top image. From there we photographed the coal train in at least three other places. Akron wasn’t one of them, probably because urban traffic would result in our not being able to keep pace with the train.

On the point was KCS AC44CW No. 4594 in the gray livery with yellow nose stripes that had been built by GE in November 1999. The trailing unit was a BNSF “pumpkin”

We chased that train to east of Greenwich, where it stopped to wait for traffic ahead to clear.

Among our other photo locations were Nova and River Corners Road west of Lodi, with the latter being seen in the bottom image above.

It was one of the longest chases of a single train that I’ve been involved with on the New Castle Sub. It also was kinda fun and made more exhilarating by bagging something that I seldom had been able to catch during my various railfan outings in Northeast Ohio.

The fall foliage we found along the tracks wasn’t too bad, either.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Tags: CSX coal trains, CSX New Castle Subdivision, Fall foliage, Kansas City Southern, KCS locomotives, KCS locomotives on CSX, KCS motive power, Train and fall foliage, trains and autumn, Trains and fall foliage