Stone Train in Kent Two for Tuesday

The wayback machine has taken us back to a time when mainline Class 1 freight trains still often had standard cab locomotives, when there were still pole lines in place even if not in use, and when traffic on the CSX New Castle Subdivision was more frequent than it is today.

We’re standing on the bridge carrying Middlebury Road over the tracks on the southwest side of Kent. A westbound stone train is headed back to the quarry in western Ohio to pick up another load of limestone. I believe this train delivered stone that was unloaded at the nearby Shelly Materials facility.

Both images above were made on Sept. 16, 2007, and scanned from slide film.

Photographs by Craig Sanders

On the West Side of the Kent Dam

Here is a September 2007 memory from Kent. An eastbound passes the dam on the Cuyahoga River just south of the West Main Street Bridge. The dam by now was strictly for decoration as the channel of the river had been diverted to flow freely through town.

Photograph by Craig Sanders

A Cheese Head in Kent

The Wisconsin Central is only a memory now having been acquired by Canadian National in 2001. WC locomotives were not common visitors to Northeast Ohio, thus it was a surprise to find this SD45 trailing a CSX unit on a westbound in Kent on Aug. 5, 2005. The 7512 was built for Burlington Northern in July 1971.

Photograph by Craig Sanders

CSX 911 Passes Through Akron

The Spirit of Our First Responders, CSX 911, an ES44AC-H, pulled a coal train through Northeast Ohio on Monday.

The train N758, a coal train that originated at the Bailey Mine in Graysville, Pennsylvania, and was bound for a Duke Energy steam plant in Terrell, North Carolina. Some online reports had the train symbol as N759.

The trailing unit of the train was ES44Cc-H No. 765. The train passed through Akron on the New Castle Subdivision around 11:30 a.m.

It diverged at Greenwich and traveled via Crestline, Galion and Edison to Columbus.

Todd Dillion caught the train at Kent while Robert Farkas got it at Clinton.

The first four images are from Todd while the bottom image is from Bob.

Rounding the Bend in Kent

It used to be that Crain Street in Kent crossed over the CSX New Castle Subdivision tracks on its own bridge. A sidewalk on the north side of the bridge offered an expansion view of westbound trains rounding a curve before heading south through downtown Kent.

A road construction project several years ago removed the Crain Street bridge and instead extended Fairchild Avenue over the CSX tracks.

That bridge came with fence. However, a pedestrian bridge located where the Crain Street bridge used to be still offers some photo angles.

The image above was made on March 23, 2008, from the old Crain Street bridge. A westbound is about to pass a remnant of pole line that once graced this former Baltimore & Ohio line.

Photograph by Craig Sanders

Early in the CSX Era

It’s early in the CSX era and we’ve paying a visit in June 1988 to the New Castle Subdivision in Kent. This eastbound manifest freight is reflective of the times with a CSX GP15T on the point and two trailing units painted in the livery of a CSX predecessor. The middle unit is wearing Chessie System colors.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Getting Out of Florida to Work the New Castle Sub

Last year CSX bought 10 new EMD SD70ACe-T4 units, which the carrier classifies as ST70AH. They were initially confined to Florida’s Bone Valley operations. Recently they have been turned loose to run systemwide. In the past week two have led trains through Akron on the New Castle Subdivision. In the top image, CSX 8903 leads Q299 at Kent on Feb. 16. In the middle image No. 8906 leads Q015 at Wampum and Lowellville on Feb. 22.

Article and Photographs by Todd Dillon

Up and Down the Monon

The Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railroad — better known as the Monon — once operated 603 miles of track before it was merged into the Louisville & Nashville in 1971.

It’s primary route was between Chicago and Louisville, Kentucky, with branches extended to Indianapolis, French Lick, Indiana, and Michigan City, Indiana.

However, all of the track it owned was entirely in Indiana with the Monon relying on terminal railroads to reach Chicago and Louisville.

The Monon had a circular herald of red and white, which were the colors used in the post World War II era for passenger train equipment. The logo featured the railroad’s name and slogan “The Hoosier Line” as well as the letter M and an arrowhead.

The latter was a nod to the belief that Monon was a Potowatomi Indian word meaning “swift running.”

The CSX locomotive with the Monon herald on the side of its nose came westward last week on the New Castle Subdivision.

Akron Railroad Club Vice President Todd Dillon caught up with it in Kent.

Photographs by Todd Dillon

Running on Empty

The Jackson Browne song reflected in the title of this post has nothing to do with railroads but it does have a line about “looking out at the road rushing under my wheels.”

He meant a car and not a train. Indeed Browne said the idea for the song came to him while driving to a studio every day in 1976 to record his album The Pretender.

Browne’s 1978 hit came to my mind as I watched this empty coal hopper train roll beneath me as I stood on the Portage Hike and Bike Trail near Kent.

The eastbound train is probably headed for a mine in southwest Pennsylvania.

Arguably the theme could apply to coal trains generally. Coal trains are still around and not going away anytime soon, but coal as a fuel continues to lose ground to natural gas.

In fact the coal industry might be able to relate to another line in the song, “I don’t know when that road turned, into the road I’m on.”

Good Locomotive, Bad Light

I had time to get in some afternoon railfanning before the May Akron Railroad Club meeting so I took my camera with me during a hike on the Portage Hike and Bike Trail near Kent.

I also took my scanner and sat on bench on the trail next to the CSX New Castle Subdivison and waited for a train to show up.

In my experience, afternoons can be slow on the New Castle Sub. and today was no exception.

There was a track gang at work somewhere nearby and approaching trains had to call the foreman on the radio to get authority through the work zone.

I thought I heard a train identifying itself as Q015, a stack train, calling the foreman. That was good news because I really wanted to get a westbound coming around a curve and into some good later afternoon light.

I got up and got into position. Soon I heard the rumbling of prime movers of an approaching train.

But it seemed to be coming from behind me. It got louder and finally I looked around to discover that I had actually heard the Q016 approaching.

The good news was that on the point was a beautiful Southern Belle of Kansas City Southern. Such units are not unheard of in Northeast Ohio, but not common either.

The bad news was the the lighting was unfavorable. I made the photograph anyway even though I didn’t have much time to get a better composition.

Some days are like that. Not far behind the Q016 was an eastbound auto rack and stack train. I never did see a westbound during my time on the trail that afternoon.