1 Hour, 2 Heritage Units

I watched Penn Central No. 1073 this morning at 9:15 a.m. on the Horseshoe Curve rail cam. Also around that time I saw NS 8114 had been posted on Heritage Units as being in Chesterton, Indiana. What would be the chances for seeing two in one day?

I called fellow Akron Railroad Club member Jeff Troutman and he was attending a funeral but said he should be back home in the afternoon.

They were closing in so I figured if I drove we would have to be on the road by 3:30 p.m. I called Jeff and he was to be home a little after 3 p.m. I got him at 3:30 p.m.

We got to the Tot Lot in Bedford at about 4:50 p.m. The first two photos were made about a minute later.

A young railfan from Wisconsin with his father had no idea this was coming and was super excited. Then his excitement returned about 50 minutes later. It was a good day for everybody.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Where Ed Once Lived. No, Not that Ed

I was railfanning in Bedford a while back when a guy came up to me and introduced himself as Ed.

He pointed toward a gentlemen he was with him and said that was his father, who was also named Ed.

Then Ed Jr. pointed to the yellow house across the tracks and said he used to live there. I can see why Ed became a railfan.

The Eds still live in Bedford in another home a few blocks west of the Cleveland Line of Norfolk Southern.

As for the headline of this posting, well in the Akron Railroad Club Ed is Edward Ribinskas, our treasurer.

Ed the treasurer and I have spent time over the years railfanning in Bedford before ARRC meetings.

So this photograph of eastbound NS train 20E rolling past the yellow house in Bedford by the tracks is for Ed, Ed and Ed.

Article and Photograph by Craig Sanders

Getting Lucky En Route to an ARRC Meeting

What a treat. The New York Central heritage locomotive of Norfolk Southern on former Pennsylvania Railroad rails in Bedford.

Last Friday afternoon I checked the Heritage Units.com site more out of curiosity than anything else.

The New York Central heritage unit was shown as having been spotted at Leetonia, Ohio, at 3:25 p.m. leading westbound Norfolk Southern train 15K.

Hmmmm, I thought. We might be able to catch it on our way to the Akron Railroad Club meeting.

The plan was for Ed Ribinskas and Jeff Troutman to arrive at my house between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Depending on how the train was doing we might be able to get it.

At 4:28 p.m. the 1066 was reported by Alliance. Figuring that it would take an hour to get to Bedford and a half-hour to get there from my house if we left by 5 p.m. there was still a chance.

Ed and Jeff arrived shortly before 5 and we got underway immediately. Jeff checked HU which reported that the NYC H unit was by Earlville at 5:03 p.m. That is west of Brady Lake, if I remembered correctly. It was going to be tight.

It might take only a half-hour in most circumstances to reach Bedford from my house but Friday afternoon at 5 p.m. is not most circumstances. Traffic was heavy and we kept getting dinged by stop lights and traffic back-ups.

We finally made it to Rockside Road only to find out the 15K has been seen at Macedonia at 5:18 p.m. My heart sank. That was nearly 15 minutes ago. We’re not going to make it.

I reached the intersection of Rockside and Broadway where a short distance to the west Rockside goes over the NS Cleveland Line. Could the 15K be passing beneath Rockside at that moment?

Jeff suggested that maybe a circuit would be down and the 15k would be delayed. He was grasping at straws.

As we turned onto West Glendale Street, I asked Ed and Jeff to look for the signal indication just west of there.

Jeff said he saw the top head of the signal for Track No. 2 go from amber to green. That was potentially good news because it meant a westbound was lined up.

It might also mean the westbound was running closely behind the 15K, which had just cleared the block ahead.

I pulled into the tot lot parking lot, got out, opened my trunk and picked my camera out of the bag. I also fumbled to get my scanner set up.

I feared hearing the 15K call a signal at CP 114 or some other spot west of our location at milepost 110.

Jeff reminded us that trains are going upgrade coming from Macdonia and they might have to slow while passing Motor Yard.

I wasn’t hearing anything calling signals west of us. Then the gates for West Grace Street went down. Maybe this was it. But as soon as the gate came down they went back up. False alarm.

There was a faint transmission that Jeff said sounded like the 15K talking. But where was it? East of us? West of us?

We didn’t have long to find out. The gates for Grace Street went down again. Seconds later we heard the rumbling of diesels and Jeff, who was the closest to the tracks  said, “that’s it.”

Indeed it was. That NYC mighty oval never looked so good.

We got our photographs, congratulated each other on our good fortune and left for Akron.

The 15K was a long train and was not moving very fast when it arrived in Bedford. It had taken it 24 minutes to go from Macedonia to Bedford.

Had we been able to stick around another hour, we could have seen the Pennsylvania Railroad heritage locomotive pass by on its namesake rails. But it was trailing and we had places to go.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

I thought we had missed it, but luck was with us in landing the NYC heritage unit.

The going away view shows a better view of the lightning stripes on the body of No. 1066.

With a Little Help From My Friends

NS train 68D is a heavy train of stone hoppers that delivers its loads to Shelly Materials at the Chrysler Yard in Twinsburg.

On the day that this image was made, the 68D stopped on Track No. 1 of the Cleveland Line in the vicinity of MP 114 in Cleveland to get a pair of pusher units, which came from the BF12.

The helpers were to give the 68D a hand as it worked its way uphill on the Crown Industrial Track, which diverges from the Cleveland Line at CP 102.

The helpers are shown going away at Bedford at MP 110. Ordinarily, I am not thrilled about shooting the tail end of motive power, but in this case there was something about it that I liked.

Maybe that is because having the BF12’s locomotives pushing elephant style helps convey that these are helper units.

Article and Photograph by Craig Sanders

Seeing Blue in Northeast Ohio

On Monday, Aug. 22, Norfolk Southern DC to AC conversion locomotive No. 4000 made what is believed to have been its first visit to Northeast Ohio.

DC to AC conversion No. 4001 was in Ohio back in April leading a train to Bellevue on the Sandusky District on a day that featured heavy snow.

Nos. 4000 and 4001 have been paired at times, but of late seem to be working independently. They are the only conversion locomotives to thus far receive the blue nose treatment.

Railfans and their cameras were out in force as No. 4000 led manifest freight 11K on its journey from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Elkhart, Indiana.

Although numerous images of the 11K have been posted in various places online, here is what I was able to get in Bedford.

Photographs by Craig Sanders

 

Catching Up With the Cleveland Commercial

Here comes the Cleveland Commercial job bound for Cleveland making its way through Bedford.

If I want to see a train but don’t want to drive a long distance, I go to Bedford. The city created a small children’s park on Palmetto Street, which runs parallel with the Cleveland Line of Norfolk Southern.

Railfans have been known to park in the small parking lot of the park to watch trains go past.

The “tot lot” as it’s often called, is about a half-hour from my home and if there is something out of the ordinary coming on NS I might buzz down to Bedford to catch it.

Such was the case earlier this week when NS No. 4000, the DC to AC conversion locomotive with the blue nose came through town leading train 11K.

But before the feature train of the day arrived, the Cleveland Commercial Railroad put in an appearance.

The CCR uses the former Conotton Valley, which for much of its life was the Cleveland line of the Wheeling & Lake Erie. Later, it was the Nickel Plate Road and then Norfolk & Western.

It eventually reverted back to the modern W&LE, which has been leasing it north of Glenwillow to various short line operators, the CCR being the latest.

At times before an Akron Railroad Club meeting, Ed Ribinskas and I have hung out at the tot lot, primarily to see NS in action, but we never minded when the CCR came along.

During one of those sightings the CCR train was rocking back and forth so much that I thought it might derail.

That prompted us to dub the CCR “the rock and rollers.” I wish I had a video of it.

It has been quite a while since I last saw the CCR and as I was waiting for the NS 11K to get the OK to head west through a single-track work zone, we heard horns in the distance.

Your best opportunity to catch the CCR is during late afternoon when the train to Cleveland rumbles through.

Apparently, the CCR has done some track work because the train was hardly rocking and rolling at all.

Of course with short lines such as the CCR, track conditions are relative. The track is still slow speed, but better than it was.

All but one of the cars being toted by the two locomotives of the CCR were gondolas. My guess is that most of them will be filled with scrap metal.

You won’t see ethanol, crude oil, grain, automobiles, containers or coal traveling the rails of the CCR. Perhaps it handles some boxcar traffic, but I don’t see its operations enough to know that.

Those gondolas are batter and bruised, having been around a long time in industrial service. Yet those that fill then have a need for rail service and the CCR provides it, presumably well.

Railroads such as the CCR serve a niche in the American railroad scene. They may not get the attention that the Class 1 and large regional roads get, but their work is no less indispensable to shippers and interesting to observe.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

The motive power for the CCR is former Union Pacific and former Santa Fe, both in their original colors with the ex-ATSF unit still wearing Santa Fe markings. The unit, though, is owned by LTEX.

I thought this image of the CCR train and its gondolas summed up what this railroad is all about.

As the CCR train was in Bedford, NS train 68D, which had a load of limestone bound for Shelly Materials in Twinsburg, also passed by. The head end of the CCR job can be seen just beyond the signals on the NS Cleveland Line.

Looking southward toward the head end of the NS stone train and the rear end of the CCR train. It is not common to get a CCR and NS train at the same time.

Not Much Change at Egbert Road in 4 Years

The 18N is about to duck beneath Egbert Road, which on some maps is shown as Taylor Parkway.

It had been more than four years since I photographed a Norfolk Southern train from the Egbert Road overpass in Bedford. It was May 2011 to be exact.

I remembered that it was a good photo location because the bridge doesn’t have fences and the NS tracks lie in a vast open area that bisects the Bedford Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks.

I might photograph there more often, but it is bit of a jaunt from the parking lot to the bridge. Then you have to stand on a sidewalk/bike path next to a busy and noisy highway.

When considering photo locations for a chase earlier this month of the NS Whistle-Stop Safety Train, Egbert Road was at the top of my list of sites in southeast Cleveland suburbs. The tracks here cut southeastward so the train would have good light on its nose.

The Willis Picnic area of the Bedford Reservation is OK, but the tracks are elevated and there is quite a bit of vegetation along the right of way. There is also the risk of getting blocked by another train and, primarily, the location offers just side views.

The “tot lot” on Palmetto Avenue was another candidate. It also carries the risk of getting blocked by another train, although there are grade crossings nearby at which to get to the other side of the tracks.

I decided on Egbert Road because by the time the safety train got to Bedford I would have already photographed it twice at ground level. I wanted to get some elevation to shoot the NS 9-1-1.

Before the safety train showed up, though, I had two chances to practice with eastbound freights. First came a stack train followed by an auto rack train.

I had forgotten that the guard rails on the north side of the bridge are quite high, coming to head level. But there is ample space between the rails to photograph.

The environment at this location is not overly exciting. There are lots of trees and utility lines on each side of the tracks, which are on a long tangent here. On the plus side, there isn’t much clutter.

It is not a location to which I would want to return often. But as elevated photo locations in the Greater Cleveland region go, it’s not too bad.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

It’s tough to photograph at Edgbert Road without getting utility poles in your images. But at least there is ample open area between the trees.

Wide-angle view of the 20Q on Track No. 2 of the Cleveland Line. A weed spraying job had Track 1 tied up ahead.

A telephoto shot of the 18N slowly making its way eastward. By now the sun was coming back out again.

A long line of containers stretches out behind the head end of the 20Q

Some Conrail Heritage and Some Spring

The Conrail heritage locomotive of Norfolk Southern leads an eastbound intermodal train through Bedford, Ohio, on April 27, 2015.

It has become something of a tradition. On the afternoon of the April meeting of the Akron Railroad Club I swing by the Bedford Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks to catch some Norfolk Southern action on the Cleveland Line as well as make some photographs that show trains and spring.

Last Friday, I spent just over an hour there. Rail traffic was good and the trees were starting to bud. However, they were not in full bloom as has been the case in the past. Chalk it up to a late spring triggered by the long and tough winter that we had.

Two days later reports made their way into the railfan cyberspace world that the NS Conrail heritage locomotive was leading a 20E intermodal train across Ohio.

It would reach Cleveland in late afternoon so I headed again for Bedford where I knew I would be able to catch the NS 8098 in good side lighting. As had been the case on Friday, the weather was sunny and nice.

I heard the 20E calling a signal shortly after I arrived. It would be held briefly at CP 114 for a westbound crude oil tanker train that was crossing over from Track 1 to Track 2.

The Cleveland Line dispatcher informed two trains holding near Motor Yard in Macedonia that they would be following the 20E because of single tracking on the Cleveland Line heading out of Cleveland.

I sought to duplicate with the NS 8098 a similar photo setup that I had made with the Penn Central heritage locomotive. I had photographed it during spring in Bedford on the lead of an eastbound train.

In both instances, I photographed the lead locomotive as it traveled over the plate girder bridge carrying the trains over the access road into the Bedford Reservation.

The results with the NS 8098 can be seen above. It could easily be a scene from the 1990s when this was still Conrail territory.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

The 20E approaches on the high line passing through Bedford. It is at least the fourth NS heritage unit that I’ve photographed here.

The trees are budding and blooming at last in Northeast Ohio.

The lead unit of an eastbound crude oil train.

An eastbound intermodal train meets a westbound RoadRailer in Bedford on Friday, April 24.