It is 1967-1968 in Kent. An eastbound Erie Lackawanna freight train whose lead unit is at West Main Street has just passed the passenger station hidden to the back right of the train.
Erie Lackawanna E8A No. 815 is on the point of the Lake Cities in Kent on a winter morning in the late 1960s. By now this was the last intercity passenger train left on the EL although the railroad had commuter trains in Cleveland and the New York City region.
The late Mike Ondecker and I were at the Erie Lackawanna Kent yard in 1967 or 1968 where I photographed this eastbound during a crew change. The units include 2554 (EMD GP35), (unidentified) (EMD F7B), 7063 (EMD F3), 2501 (GE U25), 7081 (EMD F3A), and 7254 (Alco FALCO FA-1).
It’s hard to imagine today but motive power lashups like this were once common. Erie Lackawanna F3A leads a westbound in Kent in the late 1960s with a B unit and another A unit. There is even an EL boxcar in the consist.
The wayback machine has landed us trackside along the Erie Lackawanna mainline in Kent in the late 1960s.
You’ve got black and white negative film loaded in your camera and show time is at hand as the westbound Lake Cities is about to make its station stop.
Led by E8A No. 822, it will pass by us before stopping. The roof of the passenger station is above the first cars.
By the time the photographer caught up to Erie Lackawanna E8A No. 830 in Kent in May 1973, the carrier had been out of the intercity rail passenger business for more than three years.
In any event, Amtrak was two years old and its seems unlikely that even if EL’s Lake Cities had survived until the coming of Amtrak that it would have been picked up and kept going.
No. 830 began life in March 1951 for the Erie Railroad so Kent was a place it likely had seen many times over the years while pulling such trains as the LakeCities, Phoebe Snow and Midlander.
Interestingly it wore roster number 830 during its service to the Erie.
It is shown here in freight service, which is how some EL passenger diesels spent their last years for the carrier.
Here’s a combination that used to be common but would be rare today. On the lead of this westbound Erie Lackawanna train in Kent is GE U25B No. 2512. Trailing the U boat is Alco C424 No. 2404. It’s enough to make to you say, “gee, look at that.”