To celebrate America’s 200th birthday many railroads painted or more of their locomotives in a special bicentennial livery, often featuring the colors red, white and blue.
The Erie Lackawanna was no exception. It transformed SD45 No. 3638 into a bicentennial scheme.
This image was made in Akron on June 14, 1979. The bicentennial is long over and the EL has vanished, with some of its components being folded into Conrail.
Shown leading a westbound Conrail manifest freight, the 3638 has since been renumbered 6669 and has had its EL identity either painted over or obscured. Note the “CR” initials toward the rear of the unit.
The train is on former EL track and passing a building once used by the EL and the Erie Railroad.
Early Conrail motive power at its fines is on display in the yard in Canton on March 19, 1977. Pulling the eastbound train at SD40 6355, GP40 3079, and SDP45 No. 6686. The middle unit still wears Penn Central markings while the third unit still has Erie Lackawanna paint. The 6686 was built in June 1969 as EL 3655.
It’s a late afternoon in June 1976 in the early Conrail era in Akron. Four Conrail F-units still in full Penn Central paint are headed to Hudson and on to Motor Yard on train AMA which is led by F7A 1744. How thankful I am for photos like these.
It’s the early Conrail era in Akron where we see an intermodal train cruise past Voris Street and beneath the Interstate 76 overpass. The motive power is a generational portrait with units in Penn Central and Erie Lackawanna liveries. As a reminder of what this is the third unit wears the then new Conrail livery.
During these years intermodal trains continued to operate on the former EL tracks through Akron.
Here are two views in Massillon that show some of the changes in the past 40 plus years.
In the top image, Conrail GP38 7793 is at Mace Tower in March 1978.
Notice the freight cars in the small yard. The steel industry (now gone) and local industries made this yard needed.
The Baltimore & Ohio crossed Conrail (ex-Pennsylvania Railroad) on a diagonal here and there were two tracks west out of Massillon.
In the bottom image it’s April 17, 2009. Notice how the B&O line, now part of R.J, Corman, switches onto NS and then switches directly off. Look at all that’s missing.
Today even the ex-PRR signals are gone, having been replaced by modern signals.
Conrail SD45 No. 6115 is on the Cleveland Line in southeast Alliance headed toward Bayard on Aug. 11, 1979. It is passing through an industrial section of the city. No. 6115 came from Penn Central and the unit immediate behind it still wears Erie Lackawanna colors.
Former Penn Central GP35 and two running mates still wear their PC liveries as they roll a Conrail train westbound through Akron in June 1976. Of course Conrail had only been around for just over a couple of months so few locomotives in Conrail blue had shown up yet.
The phrase putting the cart before the horse is an idiom that often denotes something that is being done contrary to conventions or an expected relationship.
Everyone knows that a caboose is placed on the end of the train, right?
That is not always so when doing a switching move.
In the photo above, made in the early Conrail years, a switcher works at the east end of the yard in Canton with a transfer caboose that still has its Penn Central markings.
Eastbound Conrail SD40 No. 6311, wearing the carrier’s blue and white livery, meets a westbound freight on the now-single track but then double track Fort Wayne Line between Massillon and Orrville on July 17, 1980.
The 6311, which had been built February 1966 for the Pennsylvania Railroad, is heading uphill while the westbound is heading downgrade.
