Sunning Itself in Harrisburg

This GGI is actually a Penn Central locomotive even if it is wearing Pennsylvania Railroad markings. It was captured in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in bright sunlight in the late 1960s.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Still Has That Pennsy Look

It may actually be Penn Central EMD FP7A No. 4332 but it is still wearing its Pennsylvania Railroad markings. The image was made in Collinwood Yard, a former New York Central facility, in Cleveland on Nov. 11, 1968.

In the bottom image, PC GG1 No. 4924 also still has its PRR paint as it sits in is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the early PC era.

This may have come from the Memorial Day weekend 1969 trip that John Woodworth, Mike Ondecker, and I took. I’m not certain.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

New Display Site Needed for GG1 in Harrisburg

Amtrak’s plans to renovate the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, station means that historic Pennsylvania Railroad equipment on display there must be moved.

The display includes Pennsy GG1 No. 4859 and a PRR cabin car.

The Harrisburg Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society is seeking a new home for the GG1 and cabin car, both of which it owns and displays on space it leases from Amtrak.

The GG1 is usually displayed on Track No. 5, but Amtrak plans to rebuild the platform for that track to have high-level platforms that conform with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

John Smith of the Harrisburg chapter said it is talking with Amtrak for a solution that would enable the equipment to continue to be displayed under cover.

Amtrak has offered use of another track, but that would expose the locomotive to the elements.

Another idea being considered is moving the display to a pavilion near Harris Tower and 1,000 feet north of the station.

Smith told Trains magazine that he wants to see another track built so that passengers boarding trains could see the equipment and that it would be under cover.

He said that because the GG1 is on the National Register of Historic Places that Amtrak cannot put the chapter and its equipment at a disadvantage.

Ed’s Trip to Pennsylvania (Part 3)

Sunday morning found us back in downtown Altoona, Pennsylvania, to get a few more images of Norfolk Southern and Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian as they passed Alto Tower.

We ate breakfast and attended church that morning and also made a visit to the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum.

At the museum we saw the ex-Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 and the Pennsy K4 1361 before heading home to Ohio.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

More Kent Conrail (and EL and B&O) Nostalgia

A caboose meet in downtown Kent in January 1979. Note the old Home Savings sign.

I thought with all the interest in the railroad photos taken around Kent and posted on the Akron Railroad Club blog lately that I’d toss in a few from my early days of rail photography in that area.

The Erie Lackawanna/Conrail and the Chessie were busy of course, but the ex-Norfolk & Western line that the Wheeling & Lake Erie and the Akron Barberton Cluster run on today was dormant for years through Kent.

Conrail soon eliminated the inter-divisional runs that the EL had, which had all trains change crews in Kent. It was sad to watch the remains of the former EL slowly get quieter and weed infested as the 1970s ended.

Once the through trains were removed in late 1980 it was just that local out of Leavittsburg that served Ravenna and Kent from the Youngstown area.

Back then the Star of the West Milling facility was Williams Brothers and there was a tank car lining facility located beside Mogadore Road. Both businesses were switched often.

There was a short time when Kent was served by a local out of Alliance off the Cleveland & Pittsburgh (now the Cleveland Line of Norfolk Southern).

A connection was built about a mile east of the Towner’s Woods area where the EL and the C&P were side by side. The connection had hand-throw switches. Although I photographed the tracks, I never caught a train using them.

For me, Kent has always been one of those places that is nice just to hang out and wait for trains, and remains so today. I guess as long as trains still roll along the Cuyahoga and pass in front of the old Kent station you’ll find me there, camera in hand.

Article and Photographs by Roger Durfee

An EL local passes in front of a boarded up ex Erie passenger station in downtown Kent in December 1975.

A Conrail westbound waits for a new crew at Crain Avenue on a really nice winter day in February 1979. We were really dig’n that blue Alco C636.

A Conrail eastbound passes Williams Brothers Grain Co in downtown Kent in February 1978.

An EL local crosses Ravenna Road and blows past Brady Tower before this area had become Towner’s Woods Park.

In one of the more interesting trains to pass through Kent, 12 dead GG1 electrics sit at the Summit Street crossing on the former EL in April 1979. They were bound for a scrapper in Hubbard, Ohio. That’s the tank car lining building in the background.

It was hard to beat this November 1977 early Conrail power set. Four matched ex-EL Alco C-424s depart Kent eastbound on their home road. The B&O is below that girder bridge under the third unit.

One of only two ex-Reading Lines Alco C-430s and the only one of the two to get full blue waits for a new crew at the east end of the former Erie yards in Kent. It’s a typical “dog’s breakfast” of an early Conrail power consist.

B&O 4230 leads the Philly Jet eastbound past the old B&O freight station. This station was removed a couple of years ago.

A colorful westbound grain train passes the former B&O station in Kent. You can see the former Erie station up on the hill in the background.

A detouring Chessie westbound passes the former Erie Kent depot on a hazy July 1977 day.

A classy looking black and gold Western Maryland unit leads a westbound through Kent. You can see the dam/waterfall stonework since the falls is dry on this day in May 1977.