Vintage Scene in Alliance

It is July 9, 1972. Penn Central GP 40 No. 3221 is eastbound in Alliance on the Fort Wayne Line.

Much of what you see here is gone although the track layout remains largely the same.

The bridge in the background carries Main Street in Alliance over the maze of former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks.

The rear of No. 3221 is over the diamond of the Fort Wayne Line and what is today the Cleveland Line of Norfolk Southern that goes to Bayard and Yellow Creek on the Ohio River. The PRR called it the Mahoning Secondary Track.

One of the more interesting elements of this scene involves the signals on the bridge, which in Pennsy days was known as Bridge 83.23.

As explained by author Robert J. Yanosey in volume 12 of his Pennsylvania Railroad Facilities series, this was not an interlocked crossing although it almost was.

By law, railroads in Ohio were required to place a target signal on mainline tracks at non-interlocked crossings.

The position of the target controlled the signal circuits so that signal indications could not be displayed unless the target was lined correctly for the route of travel.

When the target was in the vertical position, Fort Wayne Line trains could move with the flow of traffic if they received a signal indication of better than stop.

The signal heads mounted on the bridge are for Tracks 2 and 3 while the signal for Track 1 was on the ground.

Just to the right of the nose of the 3221 is the Alliance block station, from which the signals for the crossing of the Cleveland Line and Fort Wayne Line were operated.

It was a block station only for Cleveland Line trains.

Today all of these signals are gone and the Fort Wayne Line here is a single track. Most traffic uses a double-track connection between the Cleveland Line and Fort Wayne Line.

But back in 1972 that connection was a single track

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Railroading as it Once Was: ‘Yellowbids’ Flying Through Brady Lake on Conrail’s Cleveland Line

Utility companies used to have their own locomotives painted in their own liveries. These units were assigned to coal trains that operated between the mine and the power generating station.

Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company had a fleet of nine GP38-2 locomotives that were regular visitors in Northeast Ohio and were dubbed “Yellowbirds” by railfans because of their yellow noses.

Four “Yellowbirds” bring CEI empties east at Brady Lake on Conrail’s Cleveland Line on a fine October 1978 day. A short stub of the former Lake Erie & Pittsburgh/New York Central line is to the left of the train carried the eastbound main of the LE&P.

The westbound main crossed over the Cleveland Line on the bridge in the background, rising on a grade that is visible to the left amide trees and brush.

That is Lake Rockwell to the left in the background, which supplies drinking water for Akron.

All nine “Yellowbirds” were eventually acquired by Union Pacific. Also shown are CEIX Nos. 100 and 105.

Photograph by Roger Durfee

NS Heritage Units at CP 107

The Norfolk Southern CNJ heritage unit made a daylight trip through our area on Thursday on train No. 553, empty WEPX hoppers to load at Kensington on the Cleveland Line.

I finished up work and headed for CP 107 in Bedford. The wait was short as this train was moving right along.
I also managed to grab a photo of the “NS NS” unit leading 60T from my “office” last week, also at CP 107.

Photographs by Roger Durfee