It’s Oct. 29, 1977, in Akron where Cuyahoga Valley Line 4070 is at Akron Junction on the Baltimore & Ohio waiting to pick up its train for the northbound trip later on in the day that will return its passengers to Cleveland.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Cuyahoga Valley Line 4070 is in Akron on Oct. 27, 1979. The locomotive and its train will pull up to me and then back around the wye at Akron Junction on the Baltimore & Ohio. This will position the train for its trip back to Cleveland.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Western Maryland GP40-2 No. 4365 and Baltimore & Ohio GP40-2 No. 4129 cruise eastbound on the main line at Akron Junction in early 1980.
No. 4365 was built in 1979 while No. 4129 rolled out of the EMD plant in September 1972. Both would later serve CSX.
Akron Junction doesn’t look the same as it once did. Last year CSX removed most of the rails there, thus severing the connection between its New Castle Subdivision and the former Cleveland-Akron-Canton Valley Line. You can read all about it and view photographs of Akron Junction today in the cover article for the January 2017 Akron Railroad Club eBulletin.
To obtain a copy or to subscribe to the eBulletin, send an email request to csanders429@aol.com. A subscription and single copies are free.
A Wheeling & Lake Erie stone train takes head room on the trestle spanning the valley of the Ohio & Erie Canal.
Good things happen when you go out on an autumn railfan outing with Roger Durfee.
I met up with my fellow Akron Railroad Club member in early November on a Sunday morning for some autumn railfanning around Akron.
We’ve done this in the past and I’ve come back with some very good autumn foliage images of trains images, some of the best I’ve made.
We had a plan of sorts that we didn’t quite wind up fully implementing because events kept interfering.
We didn’t know when we set out that morning that we’d have the opportunity to photograph three Wheeling & Lake Erie trains.
I’ve long said that I usually wind up getting the W&LE when I’m out looking for something else and that is what happened on this day.
Aside from capturing the W&LE, we also inspected the current state of affairs at Voris Street, found that the Amtrak station in Amtrak hasn’t changed much since the rail passenger carrier left Akron more than a decade ago, and took the time to visit the former AC&Y Building in downtown Akron.
We also stopped by Northside Station on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad to photograph a departing National Park Scenic train and visited Wingfoot Lake State Park to catch the arrival of Wingfoot Two on a flight from Columbus where it had helped TV cover the Ohio State-Nebraska football game on a Saturday night.
As mentioned in another post, we also visited Akron Junction to check out how things have changed there with CSX removing most of the tracks on the Valley Line level.
En route to Akron Junction we stopped so I could photograph the former Erie bridge over North Forge Street. The names of the cities that the Erie served have faded away, but the Erie herald is still prominent.
Did I mention that we caught CSX intermodal train Q137 at Market Street?
All in all, it was, as Roger remarked as it was winding down, a well-rounded day.
Here is a selection of photographs showing what we landed.
The first stop on our Sunday outing was the Gorge Metropark to photograph the remains of the bridge that once carried the Northern Ohio Traction & Light Company interurban cars across the Cuyahoga River.
The CVSR National Park Scenic departs Akron station, which has been decorated for the Polar Express trains.
Here comes the Q137 past the site of the second Akron Union Depot. That is Perkins Street in the background.
Shadows from a billboard creep over the lead unit of westbound Q137 as it approaches Market Street.
The last railroad to use this bridge was Conrail, but the Erie heritage is still quite visible.
There are fewer tracks at Akron Junction now, but the coaling tower still stands.
Moving out onto the trestle built decades ago by the Akron, Canton & Youngstown.
Contrary to appearances, this W&LE stone train is making a backup move on the CSX New Castle Sub.
Catching this ABC transfer job approaching Voris Street was an unexpected bonus.
Crossing Voris Street, which is, tehnically, closed to vehicle traffic.
It took longer than we expected, but the ABC transfer job finally showed up in southeast Akron near Goodyear Boulevard.
Another view of the ABC job as it returns to Brittain Yard.
We waited until early afternoon to photograph at Rock Cut Siding the stone train we had seen earlier in the day.
Here comes the third W&LE train of the day, but contrary to a post on Facebook it did not have a pair of “tiger stripes” for motive power.
Cruising along the hedges along North Street near East High School.
Wingfoot Two touches down at its base near Suffield across Wingfoot Lake as seen from Wingfoot Lake State Park.
I mentioned at the November Akron Railroad Club meeting that most of the tracks at Akron Junction that once linked the Valley Line of the Baltimore & Ohio with the Chicago-Pittsburgh mainline of the B&O have been removed by CSX sometime within the past year.
The January issue of the ARRC eBulletin will have an article and photographs about the changes at Akron Junction, but here is a view of what it looks like these days.
In the photograph above, the gondola is marooned on the East Wye Track, the rails on each side of the car having been removed. Presumably, this car will some day be scrapped in place.
Also removed has been the other leg of the wye, which was called the Hole Track or PC&T connection. A small portion of the connection is still in at the Eastwood Avenue crossing.
Just beyond the far right end of the gondola is an empty space where the two legs of the wye from the Valley Line headed toward the connection with the Chicago main at BD Tower near Evans Avenue.
The coaling tower still stands, probably because of the expense of removing it.
Akron Junction is an area in the eastern part of Akron that describes where the Baltimore & Ohio; Pennsylvania; Erie; and Akron, Canton & Youngstown railroads all came together.
The name notwithstanding, none of the railroads crossed at grade.
The B&O had two lines that intersected at Akron Junction with its Chicago-Pittsburgh line crossing over the top of the Valley Line between Cleveland and Mineral City, Ohio.
The lines were connected by a connecting track that left the Valley Line beneath the Chicago mainline bridge and snaked around to connect with the Chicago Line at BD.
The area along this connecting track also included a roundhouse, various yard tracks and a wye.
Within the past year or so CSX has removed nearly all of the connecting and yard tracks here.
On a recent Sunday, Akron Railroad Club member Roger Durfee paid a visit to this area and created a now and then image. The top image was made in July 1985.
The site of the Baltimore & Ohio yard office in Akron is now just a bare spot. The rail line above is the CSX New Castle Subdivision between Pittsburgh and Willard, Ohio. The line to the right is the former Valley Line between Cleveland and Mineral City, Ohio. (Photograph by Craig Sanders)
CSX has demolished the former Baltimore & Ohio yard office in Akron that was damaged by fire on Oct. 1, 2013. The demolition was hardly a surprise because the structure was no longer in use. Once the last CSX yardmaster based here retired, the job was abolished.
Once a three-story building, the yard office served two B&O lines in Akron. The tower dated to at least 1919 and it might have been older. At some point, the B&O modernized it with new siding and a roof to give it the appearance that most remember.
The yard office once supervised hree yards in the vicinity of Akron Junction. Hill Yard was located on the Chicago-Pittsburgh mainline. On the Cleveland, Valley & Terminal line were Hazel Yard. located south of the yard office, and Valley Yard.
The top floor housed the chief clerk’s office and had had an exit directly to the B&O’s Chicago-Pittsburgh mainline tracks. The middle floor had the offices of the terminal trainmaster, crew caller and yard clerks. The bottom floor of the structure contained a locker room for crews.
Many railfans have mistakenly described the B&O yard office as “AY,” which are the call letters of a nearby interlocking tower. This tower, which was demolished many years ago, controlled the junction of the B&O with the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Akron Branch.
AY was located just to the east of the grade crossing of Arlington Street. It was operated and maintained by the PRR.
The yard office was located next to a bridge carrying the Chicago Line over the Valley Line. Crews called this location the “hole in the wall” or “the arch.”
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