How the B&O Marketed the Columbian

I love collecting brochures introducing (then) new trains. I just got this one for the Baltimore & Ohio’s Columbian. It is circa 1949 and the train, with modern diesels and new Strata Dome cars, served Chicago and the East. You will notice one of the cities served was Akron. I already had a dining car menu from the train so I am attaching that, too. I rode Amtrak’s Capitol Limited before the Superliner age. The train had dome cars. The only way to go.

Article and Photographs by Jack Norris

Rohal Photo of B&O Train published in Newspaper

A photo made by Akron Railroad Club member Bob Rohal was published in the Record-Courier last Friday.

The photo was made in 1958 of a Baltimore & Ohio mail train passing through Kent. Rohal made the photograph atop the Main Street Bridge.

The caption mentions that an Erie Railroad passenger train was due about a half hour after the passage of the B&O train.

However, the caption incorrectly states that B&O passenger service in Kent ended year before the Erie Lackawanna discontinued its last passenger trains in January 1970.

The B&O continued to operate four passengers trains a day through Kent until the coming of Amtrak on May 1, 1971.

The caption also mentions that Erie employee Otis Taylor was waiting at the Kent station to put water into the passenger train’s locomotives.

“Little did I know that in three years along with my Journeyman Jimmy Powell I also would also be putting water in the Passenger Diesels after Mr Taylor retired,” Bob wrote in an email message.

Canton Railroad Book Now Available

Akron Railroad Club president Craig Sanders’ latest book, Canton Area Railroads, has been released by Arcadia Publishing. The book was written in cooperation with the Akron Railroad Club and features photographs from club members Richard Antibus, John Beach, Michael Boss, Peter Bowler, Richard Jacobs, Chris Lantz, James McMullen, Bob Redmond, Edward Ribinskas, Marty Surdyk and Paul Vernier.

The book chronicles the history and development of the railroads that served Stark, Wayne, Holmes, Carroll and Tuscarawas counties. Among the cities coverd are Canton, Massillon, Alliance, Orrville, Wooster, Dover, New Philadelphia, Dennison, Brewster, Navarre, Minerva and Sugar Creek.

Canton Area Railroads documents how railroad operations changed as the steel industry declined and railroad consolidations led to traffic shifts and route abandonments. Among the railroads that served this region were the Pennsylvania, Baltimore & Ohio, New York Central and Wheeling & Lake Erie. The book has images of these roads plus their sucessors Penn Central, Norfolk & Western, Conrail, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Ohio Central, R.J. Corman and OhiRail.

Also discussed are modern passenger operations Amtrak, the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad and the Orrville Railroad Heritage Society. The book is 128 pages and has more than 200 photographs.

Canton Area Railroads is the fifth railroad history book published by Sanders. His other works include Akron Railroads, Amtrak in the Heartland, Limiteds, Locals and Expresses in Indiana, 1838-1971, and Mattoon and Charleston Area Railroads.

The ARRC will be selling copies of Canton Area Railroads at train shows and at its monthly meetings. The book is also available from  booksellers and the publisher (www.arcadiapublishing.com).