2013 Longest Day in Marion

Todd Vander Sluis and Craig Sanders view the scene from the porch of AC Tower in Marion at the Akron Railroad Club’s “Longest Day” outing.

The Akron Railroad Club held its Longest Day activity at the Marion Union Station on June 23, 2013. It is annually held on the Sunday closest to the summer solstice, when the sun is furthest north of the equator.

The highlight of the day was an early morning eastbound intermodal train on CSX that had a Kansas City Southern “Belle” on the point.

In all, ARRC members saw 39 trains, which included 15 on the former Big 4-Erie, 12 on NS and 12 on the former C&O.

The day had an ending not unlike an earlier longest day outing to Bellevue. We could see an approaching thunderstorm was bearing down on us so we made an exit and went to Bucyrus for dinner at the Bob Evans restaurant. The storms were still in the area when we finished and we ended up driving through and around them on the way home.

 

Jim Mastromatteo (left) and Al Nagy photograph a coal train headed north on the ex-C&O.

Waiting for another train are (from left) Craig Sanders, Todd Vander Sluis and Marty Surdyk.

Peter Bowler gets the snot of a southbound NS train passing the former Norfolk & Western style position light signals. New signals have since been cut in and it is a matter of time before this out of service signal is removed.

Todd Vander Sluis and Marty Surdyk watch the CSX westbound coal train at 7:16 p.m.