EL Monday: Train Time in Kent

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.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

EL Monday: Last of the F3Bs

Erie Lackawanna Nos. 2524, 7082, 6212, 7062, and 6362 are eastbound in Kent on July 22, 1972. EL 7082, 6212, and 7062 are the last operating EL F3Bs.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

EL Monday: The Lake Cities in Kent

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.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

EL Monday: Check Out This Lineup

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).

Photographs by Robert Farkas

EL F7A Monday in Kent

Erie Lackawanna F7A No. 6341 sits in Kent on Feb. 24, 1973. The EMD unit was built for the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western in July 1949.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

EL Monday: Yes They Had Lashups Like This All the Time

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.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

EL Monday: The Lake Cities in Kent

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.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

EL Monday: Consigned to Freight Service

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 Lake Cities, 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.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Gee, No, A GE for an EL Monday in Kent

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.”

Photograph by Robert Farkas

EL Monday in Akron

We’ve got an Erie Lackawanna Alco S2 switcher for EL Monday today.

No. 518 is working with a train in Akron in 1968 in front of the passenger station.

McCoy Street Yard was a short distance out of sight to the left.

Photograph by Mike Ondecker