Western Pacific Visitor in Northeast Ohio

Early on Wednesday I saw that Union Pacific No. 1983, the Western Pacific heritage unit, was trailing on 14M, which operates from Conway Yard near Pittsburgh to Buffalo, New York.

Word was that it would lead the next day on 15M, a Buffalo-Conway train.

At 11 a.m. on Thursday I confirmed it had passed the North East, Pennsylvania, webcam at 10:51 a.m.

I left the house at 11:15 a.m. for Ashtabula. Just before noon I crossed State Road east of the Ashtabula River trestle.

A clear signal was showing for an eastbound, which I assumed would be 28B (formerly 206). I figured to head for Conneaut.

I scouted the south side of the yard and saw no activity. Based on that, my guess was that 15M would be in the siding east of Woodworth Road and the Conneaut Creek trestle to wait for 28B to pass.

I crossed the tracks east of the yard and my guess was confirmed as fact. I drove down Main Street to cross the former Bessemer & Lake Erie and, sure enough, there was a photo line for the Conneaut Creek trestle photo angle.

I went to the east side of the trestle on Woodworth Road where another group was waiting. Shortly before 12:30 p.m. I heard the 28B and it soon arrived crossing the trestle as in photo 1.

As soon as it passed the switch rolled over and the long-awaited show was ready to begin. Photo 2 at 12:42 p.m. shows UP 1983 coming out of the siding at Woodworth Road. 

Photo 3 shows the crew change just east of the yard at Chestnut Street. Photos 5 and 6 are the train crossing the Youngstown line diamond at 1:36 p.m.

Photo 7 is the backup move to the Youngstown line at 2 p.m. The remaining photos are 15M passing underneath Interstate 90 and passing through Carson yard just after 3 p.m.

Several fans continued the chase, but I was more than satisfied with my results.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

New NS CEO to Visit Ashtabula

New NS CEO Alan Shaw plans to spend today visiting with maintenance of way workers in Astabula.

Shaw, who assumed the CEO role on May 1, is spending time visiting various NS facilities in its first few days on the job.

He replaces James Squires, who has retired. Shaw’s ascension to CEO was planned. He was named NS president last December.

Other locations that Shaw has visited or plans to visit include Debutts Yard in Chattanooga, the yard in Elkhart, Indiana; and an operations center in Roanoke, Virginia.

Shaw also has written to NS employees to lay out his goals as he talks over the railroad.

He called service restoration and developing a customer-centric company that is operations driven among the top priorities.

“My first priority, and the top priority of every member of the Norfolk Southern team, is to restore service to the quality our customers expect and deserve,” Shaw wrote.

“We’ll compete and win in the $800 billion truck and logistics market by being customer-centric and operations-driven.”

The letter cited Amazon and UPS as examples of the type of service-oriented company that NS must seek to become.

Shaw also went on to call for controlling costs and growing revenue.

During a Transitional Era in Ashtabula

It is a late November day in 2008, a Sunday to be exact. A few days earlier a snowstorm had swept through Northeast Ohio but on the CSX Erie West Subdivision the passing trains have blown the snow off the tracks.

Peter Bowler and I got together on a photo outing that covered CSX between Perry and Ashtabula. We made a stop at North Bend Road, which crosses the CSX tracks west of the entrance to the yard.

I had photographed this signal bridge a year earlier when it had signal heads for Tracks 1 and 2. But now a track configuration within the past year has resulted in the removal of the Type G signal heads for Track 1 eastbound.

Shown is a westbound approaching North Bend Road that appears to be coming out of the yard.

A decade later on Jan. 14, 2018, Peter and I would visit this location again. By then modern signals had been installed and were in operation further to the east to control movements at the west end of the yard.

The signal bridge shown in the image above was still standing but sans all signal heads. I haven’t been back to this location since then but a check of Google Maps streetview showed the signal bridge has since been removed.

Article and Photograph by Craig Sanders

Combined Lake Shore Limited and Cardinal

The Cardinal’s equipment is on the rear of No. 48.

On Friday (Aug. 20) Amtrak combined the eastbound Cardinal and Lake Shore Limited as it ran through Northeast Ohio. 

This was due to a derailment in Indiana on Thursday morning but the Cardinal’s equipment had to be moved to New York. This made for an impressive 16 car train with three engines.

The reason I got up early however was because Amtrak P42DC No. 100, the Midnight Blue, and P42DC No. 46, the 50th Anniversary tribute locomotive, were both on the train.

I was hoping that it would be running a little late but alas the Late Shore did not live up to its reputation today as it was on time.  In fact it arrived 27 minutes early into Cleveland station.

I chased No. 48 east to Ashtabula hoping to get it in daylight and while the sun had started to rise it was pretty dark when it went by me at 6:40 a.m.

Also my camera misfired and cut off the nose of the 100.  At least the going away shot turned out nice. Oh well you can’t win them all.

Article and Photographs by Todd Dillon

Ashtabula Seeking to Save Coal Conveyor

Ashtabula and Norfolk Southern are expected to reach an agreement on the sale of a coal conveyor belt and bridge in the city’s harbor that will enable preservation of the structure.

The Ashtabula City Council earlier this week authorized City Manager Jim Timonere to enter into agreements with NS and the Ashtabula River Foundation to buy the conveyor belt and bridge, lease the land it’s situated on, and sublease the land to one or more appropriate entities to maintain the structure at minimal expense to the city. 

The city has limited at $10,000 how much it will spend, although that figure could be revised upward with city council approval.

The River Foundation will be responsible for maintenance of the structure with Timonere saying that only the cost of survey work will come from city funds.

The conveyor belt is located in NS Harbor Yard, which has been inactive in recent years after the railroad shifted its work to Sandusky. That move, announced in December 2015, led to 20 job cuts in Ashtabula.

Timonere has been discussing with NS the future of the coal conveyor for the past two years.

The Ashtabula Harbor coal pier primarily served the thermal coal market, trans-loading coal from Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to Canada and other U.S. destinations.

A Favorite Ex-NYC Signal Bridge in Ashtabula

I’ve always enjoyed using signal bridges as photo props in railfan photography.

One of my favorites was the former New York Central signal bridge at the west end of the Ashtabula yard near the grade crossing with North Bend Road. 

It was easily accessible without any trespassing on railroad property. The signals shown in these images were for eastbound traffic so the best photos were westbounds.

The top photo shows a Conrail train on April 16, 1989.

The remaining photos were made on May 4 2007. In the last photo behind the BNSF units another road crossing can be seen.

Past that crossing and closer to the entrance of the yard is where a relocated signal bridge is now in use, obviously without NYC style signals.

These are another example of what I’m glad I got when I got it.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

When Coal Still Ruled at Ashtabula Harbor

I was looking for something else when I ran across this image made in Ashtabula Harbor yard eight years ago.

The view is looking south at the rear of a coal train that is stretching out for what seems to be miles.

If you look carefully you will see the Illinois Terminal heritage locomotive in the distance. It’s bright green color should make it easy to spot.

It was a different time then. Coal trains were far more common than they are now, which is probably why I made this image and then promptly forgot about it. It had not been a highlight of the day.

Eight years later Norfolk Southern doesn’t carry as much coal as it did then. It has in recent years shifted coal away from Ashtabula Harbor in favor of Sandusky.

It has been quite a while since I last saw the harbor yard in Ashtabula so I’m not sure what use is made of it today.

NS still runs trains through Ashtabula on its Lake Erie District, the former Nickel Plate Road mainline to Buffalo, New York.

Maybe some coal still moves through town on NS or CSX. Yet that traffic must be a shadow of what it once was.

Recalling the B&LE-NS Interchange at Wallace Junction

 Back in the 1990s interchange traffic between the Bessemer & Lake Erie and Norfolk Southern was a regular happening at Wallace Junction in Pennsylvania.

Loaded coke off the Bessemer was delivered to NS at Wallace to be delivered westward.

On days off from work I would venture to Pennsylvania with the hopes of catching activity.

On days that Marty was off, he and his brother Robert would pick me up and we also had good luck on the Bessemer.

Shown are some highlights I was able to get on Thursday April 17, 1997.

The top image shows a B&LE train departing with a few cars of freight and empty hoppers at Girard

In sequence below we see NS eastbound empties arriving at Wallace, the B&LE leaving Girard, a B&LE train passed through the yard in Albion and an NS westbound at Ashtabula that had picked up coke loads at Wallace.

At the time, the B&LE still used the yard in Albion, but today most of the yard is gone and there is no activity there.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Got an ‘A’ in Photography in 1988

Norfolk & Western Class A No. 1218 was in its second year of operation in excursion service in 1988 after being restored to operating condition.

The 2-6-6-4 locomotive operated in Northeast Ohio and vicinity three times that summer and here is Ed’s A list of favorite images made while chasing the locomotive that year.

In the photograph above, the 1218 along with its train is crossing over the Rocky River in the Cleveland suburb of Rocky River on Aug. 7

In the top photograph of the series below, the 1218 is passing beneath Conrail’s Chicago Line in Vermilion on Aug. 7

In the middle image, the excursion train is crossing the Ashtabula River in Ashtabula on July 23, while the bottom image was made of the 1218 running eastbound at Bort Road outside of North East, Pennsylvania, on July 21.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Good Fortune

I finally had some good luck on Friday and Saturday in catching Norfolk Southern heritage locomotives.

I saw on Heritage Units.com that the Pennsylvania Railroad H unit was working as a DPU on train 316 and I caught it at Riverside Drive at 6:11 p.m.

Also on Friday I saw that the Wabash heritage unit was trailing on train 14M, which was headed for Buffalo, New York.

I was hoping the 1070 would return on the 15M on Saturday and be leading. Once I confirmed with Jeff Troutman that that was the case I headed to Conneaut.

The 15M operates from Buffalo to Conway Yard near Pittsburgh.

I initially caught the 15M at North Amboy Road after it left Conneaut once the eastbound intermodal train 206 had cleared the yard.

I also got the Wabash H unit backing around the connection at Ashtabula and then approaching Carson on the Youngstown Line.

Now if luck is with me, I thought, the 8102 will come back through Northeast Ohio on Sunday leading train 149.

The last two times a Heritage unit was a DPU on the 316 it was leading westbound on the 149 two days later.

And luck was with me. I went out on Sunday morning with Marty Surdyk and we not only bagged the Pennsy H unit leading the 149 at Perry but also caught the Central of New Jersey heritage unit leading the train 310 bound for Binghamton, New York, as it crossed the Grand River in Painesville.

Check this site later this week for those photographs and a story about that chase, which included taking in an ice hockey game in which the Mentor Ice Breakers edged the Delaware Thunder 6-5 in a wild game that lasted nearly four hours.

Catching three heritage units in two days is new for me and all of them were in beautiful weather.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas