The wayback machine has landed us in Jasonville, Indiana, in western Indiana coal country at Peabody Coal Company.
The company’s center cab switcher No. 5 is sitting next to a former Baltimore & Ohio Baldwin locomotive that is being cannibalized for parts.
You have a choice of admiring No. 5 with weeds or with shade.
You can find some amazing things tucked away in railroad dead lines or seldom-used sidings.
That was where these GE 132-ton locomotives were found.
The units are Wellsville Addison & Galeton Nos. 1800 and 1500 and they are in the dead line in Galeton, Pennsylvania, on July 26, 1973.
Both units were once owned by the Ford Motor Company.
The late Jerry Jacobson was known for purchasing a wide assortment of diesel locomotives when he ran the Ohio Central System.
One of the delights of the former Akron Railroad Club steam excursions to Morgan Run was seeing what the OC had at the shops and in the nearby dead line.
Of course some of that odd ball motive power made its way out on the road pulling freight trains.
Such is the case with Ohio Central 82, an 80-ton switcher shown working in Coshocton, Ohio, in August 1999.
This unit was built in November 1945 for the original Genesee & Wyoming and later served the Logansport & Eel River in Indiana before coming to the OC.
They seldom got out to run on the mainline, but switch engines are among some of the more interesting locomotives built.
Koppers tie plant in Orrville had this GE critter (top photograph) on the property on July 17, 1981. A few years later the plant closed and the critter was gone.
In the bottom image, Maryland & Pennsylvania SW9 No. 82 is shown at York, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 22, 1979. This unit was built for the Ma & Pa in November 1951.
The Lake Shore Railway Museum has received a General Electric 80-ton center cab locomotive that was the first owned by the Genesee & Wyoming Railroad in New York State.
The locomotive was previously in the collection of the Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation.
Built in 1944 in Erie, Pa., the locomotive was sold by G&W in 1962 to Cleveland-based construction contractor Hunkin-Conkey.
The locomotive was moved to Warren, Pa., and used in the construction of Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River.
It remained in Warren for a stillborn tourist railroad before being sold in 1982 to a Youngstown steel mill.
Eventually, the locomotive wound up being sold and moved to McDonald Steel, which donated it in 2008 to the Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation.
The Lake Shore museum, based in North East, Pa., has six other GE locomotives in its collection.
Columbia Chemical Cement was one of Barberton’s least photographed industrial operations. It had an end cab switcher and a center cab switcher. While it connected with the Erie Lackawanna for loads out, the cement plant also connected with the west end of PPG’s plant railroad. These two images from the same rolls of slides were from among my very first railfan photos. Unfortunately, these are my only images of the railroad.
Jim Pfeil is looking for photographs and/or information on two center cab switchers that served the Gorge power plant in North Akron/Cuyahoga Falls. One of the locomotives was a GE built and the, he believes, was a Porter. Any help would be greatly appreciated. His email address is:
pfeilj@timken.com
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