Over and Under in Conneaut

John Woodworth and I saw this eastbound Penn Central freight crossing Conneaut Creek in Conneaut on Sept.22, 1968. Below the bridge is a Bessemer & Lake Erie coal train.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

New NS Conneaut Bridge Taking Shape

Sunday was Ursula’s birthday. The day was blue skies and sunshine. We celebrated with an Ashtabula County outing.

We visited a Metropark, eat at the Red Lobster in Ashtabula, and visited a winery in Harpersfield. We also made it to Conneaut.

While in Conneaut I checked out the progress of the new Norfolk Southern bridge over Conneaut Creek. Looks like it’s being built below the current bridge, whereas the new bridge in Painesville over the Grand River was built alongside the original trestle.

The eastbound stack train just happened to show up at the right time.

Article and Photographs by Ed Ribinskas

CN Provides Land for Conneaut Reclamation Plant

Canadian National is providing land for a project in Conneaut to dredge the city’s harbor on Lake Erie.

The project was kicked off on Oct. 26 with a groundbreaking ceremony for construction of the city’s dredged material reclamation facility.

City officials said the facility will help keep the waters of Conneaut Harbor clean and accessible for ships.

A report in the Ashtabula Star Beacon said the project came about because of a state law banning open lake dumping of dredged material. Instead, the dredged material will be processed at a treatment plant.

“By taking that out of the lake and bringing it into an upland treatment facility like we’re constructing here, if all seven of the Great Lakes ports in Ohio do that, we can reduce algal blooms on Lake Erie by as much as 50 percent, which is huge,” said Jim Hockaday, Conneaut city manager.

The facility will be located on land owned by CN and leased to the city for $1 a year for 40 years.

Independence Excavating has been awarded a $11.47 million contract to build the facility, which is expected to open in a year once work begins.

“We have obviously a huge footprint here; we have interest in the maritime trade and making sure that the vessels could come in loaded, so for it to work, we needed to come to the table and give part of our property for a dollar, so that’s how we made it work,” said CN Vice President of Strategy Jamie Lockwood.

The plant will be known as the Conneaut Creek Dredge Reclamation Facility

Steam Saturday: Getting Ready at Conneaut

Nickel Plate Road Berkshire-type No. 759 made its debut as an excursion locomotive in Conneaut on Sept. 8, 1968. Here the locomotive is getting ready to couple onto its train to head east.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Western Pacific Visitor in Northeast Ohio

Early on Wednesday I saw that Union Pacific No. 1983, the Western Pacific heritage unit, was trailing on 14M, which operates from Conway Yard near Pittsburgh to Buffalo, New York.

Word was that it would lead the next day on 15M, a Buffalo-Conway train.

At 11 a.m. on Thursday I confirmed it had passed the North East, Pennsylvania, webcam at 10:51 a.m.

I left the house at 11:15 a.m. for Ashtabula. Just before noon I crossed State Road east of the Ashtabula River trestle.

A clear signal was showing for an eastbound, which I assumed would be 28B (formerly 206). I figured to head for Conneaut.

I scouted the south side of the yard and saw no activity. Based on that, my guess was that 15M would be in the siding east of Woodworth Road and the Conneaut Creek trestle to wait for 28B to pass.

I crossed the tracks east of the yard and my guess was confirmed as fact. I drove down Main Street to cross the former Bessemer & Lake Erie and, sure enough, there was a photo line for the Conneaut Creek trestle photo angle.

I went to the east side of the trestle on Woodworth Road where another group was waiting. Shortly before 12:30 p.m. I heard the 28B and it soon arrived crossing the trestle as in photo 1.

As soon as it passed the switch rolled over and the long-awaited show was ready to begin. Photo 2 at 12:42 p.m. shows UP 1983 coming out of the siding at Woodworth Road. 

Photo 3 shows the crew change just east of the yard at Chestnut Street. Photos 5 and 6 are the train crossing the Youngstown line diamond at 1:36 p.m.

Photo 7 is the backup move to the Youngstown line at 2 p.m. The remaining photos are 15M passing underneath Interstate 90 and passing through Carson yard just after 3 p.m.

Several fans continued the chase, but I was more than satisfied with my results.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Playing a Hunch Paid Off

Last Sunday Marty Surdyk and I were headed home after a day with the Oil Creek & Tutusville tourist railroad in Pennsylvania.

But we made a stop in Conneaut where we parked across the CSX tracks from the Conneaut Railroad Museum. It was just after 5 p.m. as we saw volunteers from the museum departing after closing for the day.

We were hoping to catch CSX No. 3194, the Spirit of Our Law Enforcement unit, which was on the point of the Q010.

What we didn’t know is that it had passed through Conneaut about an hour earlier.

Around 6 p.m. we heard horns coming from the southeast. It definitely was not CSX, but possibly Norfolk Southern or the former Bessemer & Lake Erie (now Canadian National). They sounded for two or three crossings then everything was silent.

About 15 minutes later on a hunch we drove to the Main Street crossing of the Bessemer and sure enough there was the rear of a CN empty ore train dropping into the harbor yard.

After it disappeared past the former Nickel Plate Trestle, we went back to staking out CSX by the museum.

Eventually we went back down to Main Street in case a CN train would come out before we had to head for home.

On a hunch we went down to the overlook on the west end of the Bessemer facilities. In a stroke of good luck we saw the train that arrived earlier was on a loop track loading iron ore. Here are a few photographs that I made of it.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Steam Saturday: NKP 759 in Conneaut

The wayback machine has landed us in Conneaut on May 4, 1969 when Nickel Plate Road  2-8-4 No. 759 powered the westbound Golden Spike Centennial Limited across the Norfolk & Western (ex-NKP) trestle.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

Conneaut Museum to Reopen

The Conneaut Historical Railroad Museum will reopen on Saturday and is seeking volunteers.

The museum, which is housed in a former Lake Shore & Michigan Southern passenger station next to the CSX Erie West Subdivision, was closed throughout 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Operating hours for the museum will be Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. It will also be open on Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day.

The museum currently has a staff of six volunteers but is seeking more help because the average age of the staff is in the mid 70s.

More information about volunteering opportunities is available on the museum’s Facebook page.

IC 1038 Looked Familiar

With another Super Bowl game in the books, I was looking through photographs I made during railfan outings on past Super Bowl Sundays with Marty Surdyk and Craig Sanders.

On Feb. 4, 2018, the day the Philadelphia Eagles upended the New England Patriots 41-33, we caught an inbound Canadian National train at Conneaut with Bessemer & Lake Erie SD40-3 No. 905 on the lead and Illinois Central SD70 No. 1038 trailing.

That meant the 1038 would lead coming out of the lakefront at Conneaut. We were surprised, but happy that B&LE SD38AC No. 867 was put on for the outbound move.

We chased the southbound as far as Hartstown, Pennsylvania, with intermediate photo stops in Albion (shown below) and Conneautville, Pennsylvania.

For some reason, the IC 1038 looked familiar to me. 

In my search for upcoming stories I found where I had seen it. In August 2007 Ursula and I were vacationing in the Galena, Illinois-Dubuque, Iowa area.

We visited the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium, which is adjacent to the CN (former IC Iowa Division) mainline.

After we toured the aquarium, I heard activity outside on the railroad.

Mystery solved; that is where I had seen and photographed IC No. 1038. That date was Aug. 7, 2007

In the top image, the CN train in Conneaut is passing under U.S. Route 20.

In the second Dubuque photo, look at the road sign at the far right edge of the image.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Port of Conneaut to Get Grant

The Port of Conneaut is one of 18 ports that is receiving a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration Port Infrastructure Development Program.

The port is slated to receive $19.5 million for rail and road improvements including a new rail spur connecting the East Conneaut Industrial Park to the port.

It was only project among the 10 involving railroads that is located in Ohio or a surrounding state.

Conneaut is served by three railroads, including Norfolk Southern, CSX and Canadian National.