An eastbound Baltimore & Ohio merchandise train in Kent has just passed the passenger station behind me. The Erie Lackawanna passenger station is up the hill to the right. It is the late 1960s/early 1970s, so this image is more than 50 years old.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Baltimore & Ohio GP9 No. 6454 is westbound in Kent in the late 1960s. The Geep was built in August 1956 and would later join the roster of the Maryland Midland. The photograph was just able to get beneath the pole line.
Photography by Robert Farkas
Baltimore & Ohio F7A No. 4580 is eastbound in Kent in the late 1960s. On the left side, a small portion of the B&O passenger station can be seen.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
If you know your Baltimore & Ohio passenger train history then you recognize the Diplomat was for several decades the name of a Washington/Baltimore-St. Louis train.
But as part of a restructuring of B&O passenger service in 1964, the Chicago-Washington Shenandoah was renamed the Diplomat.
Four years after that renaming occurred, the westbound Diplomat is shown in the top image at Akron Union Depot.
Some switching of head end cars also occurred here. Note that the train has a railway post office car behind its two locomotives.
The bottom image shows the Diplomat stopped at the station in Kent. If you look carefully along the right edge of the frame you’ll see a caboose from an eastbound freight
By the time these images were made, the B&O passenger department was in retreat. In November 1967, the eastbound Diplomat had been discontinued within Ohio.
The consist of the westbound Diplomat by 1969 had shrunk to a coach, a food bar coach and two or three head end cars.
It was discontinued west of Akron in early January 1970, leaving the Capitol Limited as the B&O’s lone Chicago-Washington train.
The Shenandoah name was revived for use on the surviving Akron-Washington train, which continued to operate until the coming of Amtrak on May 1, 1971.
The controls of the wayback machine are set to the period of the late 1960s to early 1970s. The railroad selected is Baltimore & Ohio. The location selected is Kent.
And that is how we wound up finding this B&O train headed eastbound. On the point is GP30 No. 6902.
Here is another memory for the blog. A Baltimore & Ohio trailer train heads east through Kent in the late 1960s/early 1970s. The Erie Lackawanna passenger station can be seen on the hill in the middle left. Notice all the jointed rail that was normal back then.
Some meteorologists are calling this year’s winter one that we’ll remember. Here is a preview of what might happen.
This Baltimore & Ohio freight is heading east beyond the B&O passenger station where I am standing and approaching downtown Kent in the late 1960s. That is the Erie Lackawanna passenger station on the hill above. Now, do you remember winter?
Westbound Baltimore & Ohio No. 1444 is pulling up to the B&O’s Kent passenger station in this late 1960s image. Soon she and her train the Diplomat would be leaving for Akron.
In the second image, it is, again, the late 1960s in Akron and Erie Lackawanna No. 7094 is under the signal bridge east of the Quaker Oats plant. The shadows on the 7094 make the location all the more real to a 1960s railfan. Sadly, today the 7094, the signal bridge, and the EL are gone.
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