Steam Saturday: Jaite Memories

Seeing Todd Dillon’s article and photos of Nickel Plate Road 765 at Vaughn Road on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad at Jaite prompted me to look through my files for same location favorites.

Morning photos were preferred on the east side of the tracks and afternoon from the west side. All these photos as Todd’s were are from the east side.

This location is probably now the favored spot since the Ohio Route bridge in Brecksville is so grown in with trees and brush.

Looking through old photos the only photos I have of Grand Trunk Western 4070 are from the west side of the tracks.

From top to bottom, the images were made on Sept. 29,2012; Sept. 14, 2013; Sept. 7 2014, and Sept. 26, 2016.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Jaite in 1967

I found two one-level 600 capacity metal slide boxes at a thrift store. There were about 800 slides still in them. No, I did not find the mother lode of railroad slides. In fact, there were five railroad slides, but only four were usable. Still, here are the first two.

These two photos taken by an unidentified photographer show the ex-Baltimore & Ohio passenger station and freight house at Jaite on the Valley Line connecting Cleveland and Akron. The images were made in July 1966 and at the time Jaite was being used as a train order station.

These structures still exist in Jaite as historic displays along the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.

However, they have been moved further back from the tracks and repainted into a different color.

Article and Photographs by Robert Farkas

Steam Saturday: NKP 765 in the Valley

Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765 returned to the Cuyahoga Valley on Friday night by pulling an excursion out of Rockside Road station that featured a night photo shoot.

The Berkshire-type steam locomotive owned by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society will pull various other trips from Rockside Road and from Akron on Sept. 10-12 and Sept. 17-19.

Generally, Saturday trips will leave from Rockside Road while Sunday trips will depart from Akron. During the visit of the NKP 765 the National Park Scenic will not operate on Sept. 11, 12, 18 or 19.

In the image above, the 765 is shown with a southbound train running south of Jaite on Sept. 23, 2017.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Where’s the Crowd?

This image was made on Sept. 26, 2016, of Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765 pulling an excursion train on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad at Jaite.

But something is missing. A crowd. Yes, it is possible to make images of the Berkshire on the CVSR without crowds although you need to know the right locations.

Yet Jaite is among the popular spots to watch and photograph the steam locomotive. Sometimes, it helps to get lucky, too.

Photograph by Edward Ribinskas

 

Some of My Faves of NKP 767 on the CVSR

I got out twice last month to chase Nickel Plate Road No. 767 when it ran on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.

In this post, I’ll show three of my best images from my chase of Sept. 25. That was the day that the Akron Railroad Club had its picnic at the Valley Picnic Area.

The day began early with a drive to Jaite to catch the ferry move of the train from the Fitzwater maintenance facility to Akron.

It was cool and foggy that morning and the 767 was putting out a lot of steam and smoke. The top image shows the ferry move passing the restored train order station at Jaite.

I returned to Jaite to photograph the first passenger trip back to Akron, which is shown in the middle image. The smoke show wasn’t too bad, either.

For the last trip of the day back to Akron, I drove to Merriman Woods to catch the train at milepost 43. While there I saw fellow ARRC member Roger Durfee.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Chasing That 767: Part 3

The chase of Nickel Plate Road No. 767 on Sunday, Sept. 25 began with a new location and a successful venture. The train is crossing the Cuyahoga River north of Peninsula.

Unlike the previous two days that I had spent chasing Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 767, Sunday, Sept. 25 dawned sunny and clear.

It was a beautiful day to chase a steam train and have an early autumn picnic in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Twenty-seven Akron Railroad Club members and guests showed up to eat hamburgers and hot dogs along with snacks and desserts.

I began my third day chasing the 767 by walking the towpath trail to the culvert where the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad tracks cross over the trail north of Peninsula.

My objective was to get a shot I’d never done with any steam locomotive.

In 2015, I had photographed the 765 crossing the Cuyahoga from the west side of the bridge. But now I wanted to get the view from the east, something I had done just once with a CVSR train.

That image had been made, by coincidence, on the day of the ARRC’s October meeting.

The east side is a tougher shot than the west side because the angle is tighter. I had it all to myself.

Later, I arrived in Boston Mill just as the train was backing up for its first photo runby.

I made a few images, but got nothing of note. I walked to the east side of the crossing of Boston Mills Road with the idea of getting the 767, the Boston Mill station and the ski resort in the background. It worked out all right.

It was too early to do the goldenrod field shot, so I went to Jaite for a going away image that I ended up liking better than what I had made here the week before.

While at Jaite, I met ARRC member Steve Heister. I would see several ARRC members on this day and the number of photographers trackside on Sept. 24 and 25 was greater than what I had seen on Sept. 18. It must have been the good weather.

After Jaite, I went to Brecksville, which was quite crowded. I had to park on the access road, which wasn’t a bad thing because it would enable me to get a faster getaway. I would need that in order to get to Deep Lock Quarry in time.

My objective in Brecksville was to get the 767 and its train along the Cuyahoga River from the Old Station Road bridge.

There were dozens of people with cameras staking out their photo spot when I arrived at Brecksville station.

The woman standing to my immediate left had two dogs. She had arrived around 7:45 a.m. just as the ferry move to Akron was passing beneath her as she drove over the Ohio Route 82 bridge. Steam and smoke from the 767 below had risen to road level and it was quite foggy.

I immediately wished I had made my way to the Valley much earlier. I had not because I had been out all day on Saturday and got home late. I didn’t want to leave home early on Sunday.

Fog can make for some dramatic images. It was cool and that meant lots of steam. I should have gone for it.

I’ve seen some images made by other photographers of the ferry move and they were pretty good.

As I stood on Old Station Road bridge, it began sinking in that I would not be able to do all of the locations with the 767 that I had envisioned. There wasn’t enough time and opportunity.

The image I had gone to get at Brecksville turned out so-so. The better image was the wide view showing the river, the Route 82 bridge and the train. I wished I had stayed with that image longer than I did.

There was plenty of time to get to Deep Lock because the 767 made an unexpected stop north of Jaite when some daisy pickers ran across the tracks as the train neared their position.

The images I made at Deep Lock met my expectations. It was time to get to the ARRC picnic.

Marty and I had planned the picnic about two weeks before it was held. We had a complication when we gave the wrong name of the picnic site and the September meeting was moved back a week due to parking lot resurfacing at New Horizons Christian Church.

Helped by good weather and the lure of a steam locomotive, the turnout exceeded our expectations. We set up a photo line to catch the northbound move of the afternoon excursion out of Akron.

Many ARRC members stayed at the picnic site to get the southbound return to Akron about two hours later.

I photographed the first Boston Mill photo runby, but skipped the second one. Instead, I drove north on Riverview.

I saw Kyle Ori standing with his wonder pole next to the road near the Columbia Run Picnic Area.

The pole enables him to gain elevation of as much as 30 feet with his camera. He uses his smart phone to control the camera.

I decided to catch the northbound run of the steam train here rather than trying for the goldenrod field.

As the train went by, my camera lens began malfunctioning. It would not zoom past about 85 mm.

I twisted it a few times and finally got it out to 135 mm. But the auto focus wasn’t working properly and all of the images I made at my maximum focal length were blurry.

The same thing happened at the Chippewa Creek bridge where fellow ARRC members Ed Ribinskas and Jeff Troutman were already set up when I arrived.

This time the 135 mm images came out all right, but the wide angle images of the 767 crossing the bridge were blurry. This was not a good thing.

The remainder of the ARRC picnic gang was standing with their cameras in hand by the side of Riverview as I drove past.

My intent was to drive into Akron and get the train at milepost 43 in the Merriman Woods housing development. Riverview Road is closed south of Bath Road and the detour pointed west on Bath.

I’m unfamiliar with the roads west of the tracks so I decided to stay at Bath Road and go for the sure thing.

I had not photographed south of Indigo Lake during the two-week stay of NKP 767 and wanted to get something on the southern end.

I saw a small clump of wild black-eyed Susans next to the tracks and placed those in the foreground as I got a low angle of the 767. The autofocus function worked fairly well.

It was nearly 4:30 p.m. and I was feeling discouraged due to my camera issues. I still didn’t have the goldenrod shot but there was time to get it during the ferry move to the Fitzwater maintenance facility from Akron.

I elected instead to head home. I had done the goldenrod shot with the 765 and with my camera lens on the fritz I might not get the 767 in focus or get the focal length I desired.

I was tired and having a beer and a snack while watching the rest of the Sunday afternoon football games sounded enticing.

The next day I took my camera to Dodd Camera in Cleveland. The store manager removed the lens and shook it. We could hear something rattling inside. The lens was broken.

But this story has a happy ending. The estimated repair cost was $200 to $300 if the camera could be economically repaired. A comparable new zoom lens would cost between about $400 to $600.

I was elated when Dodd sent me an email with a repair cost of $177. The lens has been fixed and is back on my camera.

I didn’t know how my camera saga would end on that late Sunday afternoon of the last day of the NKP 767 in the valley.

I had the same thought that I always do after making my last images of the day. Will this be the final time that I see NKP 765, 767 or whatever they choose to number it on the CVSR?

Thus far the Berkshire-type 2-8-4 has returned every September since 2013. But one of these years it might not.

As was the case in 2015, I ended my 2016 chase feeling slightly unfulfilled. I had missed the goldenrod field shot along with a few other locations. I still regret not going for the ferry move on the last Sunday morning.

But if the NKP 765 never returns to the CVSR again, I’ll be satisfied with the body of work that I was able to produce of that locomotive running through the Cuyahoga River Valley.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

I decided that I like this shot at Jaite better than a similar image I had made at this spot a week earlier.

Passing the south switch of Jaite siding. It almost looks like the locomotive is leading rather than trailing.

In the end, I thought this “preliminary” image that I made of NKP 767 along the Cuyahoga River in Brecksville is better than I the image I set had out to create here.

The opening between the trees and brush growing along the Cuyahoga River at Brecksville was not quite wide enough to fit all of the NKP 767.

Crossing the Cuyahoga River south of Peninsula in a duplication of an image I’ve made a few times with NKP 765. Oh, wait, this is NKP 765 but with a different number. This location never gets old with me.

Getting the wide angle view near Deep Lock Quarry. The towpath trail is just off the nose of NKP 767, which is crossing over the trail.

The lighting conditions at the ARRC picnic site were not as favorable as I expected when the NKP 767 and its train went north for the afternoon trip out of Akron. So I got creative with these leaves.

NKP 767 runs backward alongside Riverview Road near the Columbia Run Picnic Area. This shot turned out well, but a malfunction of my zoom lens meant that the telephoto shots I made here were blurry.

Fortunately, the autofocus and zoom functions of my lens were working when I made my last image of the NKP 767 on the CVSR. The train is approaching Bath Road. It was a good way to end my chase of the 767.

Labor Day Wanderings: Part 1

Most of my railfanning moves on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend were done in pursuit of NS 80xx, the Southern heritage locomotive, which I’ve seen just once before.

Many guys take advantage of the Labor Day weekend to make an out of town railfanning trip. I got out of town during the holiday weekend, but not for an overnight adventure. I spent two days railfanning in my “backyard.”

The plan for Saturday was to pick up my friend Adam and head to Alliance. He needed to be back by 3 p.m. to take care of child care duties and after than I would head down to the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad for the final day of operation of the Saturday-only bike train.

Adam and I had talked on Friday about going over to southwest Pennsylvania to find DC to AC conversion unit No. 4000, which on Friday morning had been reported on HeritageUnits.com as being in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.

But by early Saturday there had been no updates on the 4000 and traveling to Pennsylvania seemed risky because the 4000 might have moved on in the middle of the night and no one had seen it.

There was a report on HU about the Southern heritage locomotive of Norfolk Southern heading west on the point of train 740. Another report said the Erie H unit was in the motive power consist of an eastbound 64T going through Lima.

They would both pass through Alliance so that was the place to be. We were going around Ravenna on Ohio Route 14 when Adam’s phone dinged with an update from HU reporting that the Southern H unit had just passed through Alliance. Now what?

I’ve seen NS 8099 just once and Adam thinks it is one of the more attractive NS heritage units. It had been out of service for several weeks due to mechanical issues.

I turned south on Ohio Route 44 and headed for Interstate 76. The new plan was go to Massillon to catch the 740 and the 34T and 740 at Mace from Cherry Road NW bridge.

I had shot the Pennsylvania Railroad heritage unit from this bridge on the day of the Akron Railroad Club picnic this past July.

We made good time cruising westward and managed to avoid delays in the construction zones in Akron.

Adam had just gotten his phone during the past week and no sooner had that happened, but the manufacturer issued a recall because of the danger of the phone catching fire.

That led to a lot of joking about how Adam’s phone would blow up in his hand, the flash of light would momentarily blind me and I’d crash into something. And we would miss the heritage units.

Few of that model phone have actually caught fire and those that did did so while the owner was recharging the battery. So long as Adam didn’t try to charge the battery we were safe.

An online report indicated that the 64T was following NS train 170, which had gone into emergency west of Orrville.

The Fort Wayne Line is single track between Mace and Orrville and we played guessing games as to whether the 740 would meet the 170 at Orrville or at Mace.

We also learned that the NS 4000 was in Conway and planned to lead a coal train west on the Fort Wayne line. That looked to be an afternoon move. The New York Central heritage unit was leading a train eastward on the Sandusky District. So, the day was filled with colorful possibilities.

The 170 was going through Mace when we arrived and all I could manage was an image of the rear of the train passing the PRR position light signals.

Railfan Matt Arnold arrived not long after we did. I’d never met Matt before Saturday, but had long admired his photographic work of the Wheeling & Lake Erie. He is a talented young photographer who often railfans with his Dad.

Matt said the 740 was moving slowly, which suggested the 64T would go through Mace first.

That plan was confirmed when an R.J. Corman northbound unexpectedly showed up and keyed up the Pittsburgh West dispatcher.

To our surprise, the dispatcher said the Corman train would go through Mace south to north immediately after the 64T passed through.

The Erie H unit was second of two units, trailing a Union Pacific locomotive. The R.J. Corman train had two units.

I’ve photographed Ohio Central trains a number of times on the former Baltimore & Ohio line in Massillon at Mace, but gotten the Corman there just once while chasing an OC train during the ARRC picnic at Warwick Park.

After the Corman train cleared Mace, the westbound signal for Track 2 went to clear, which is only the second time I’ve seen that indication at that signal.

Although I’ve been to Mace several times over the years, I’ve rarely seen an NS train there. I was never there during the Conrail era.

The Pittsburgh West dispatcher called the 740 crew and said he was ready for them at Mace.

It took awhile but the 740 came into view with NS 8099 on the lead. The lighting was not favorable for a westbound coming into Mace, but I did what I could with what I had to work with.

After getting the train coming image, I dashed across the road and got a side shot and a couple of going away views.

We still had some time before I had to take Adam home. It was at this point that things started falling apart.

Matt had received a phone call from a contact saying the Corman train was going to drop its cars and go to Wooster.

But I neglected to ask him where the cars were going to be dropped. I presumed it would be in Massillon, but it might have been Warwick.

I decided to chase the 740 to Orrville and figured the Corman train would be behind it.

The route to Orrville was slow going and the 740 easily got ahead of us. I ducked down a country road to a grade crossing but nothing was in sight.

I heard the 740 call a clear signal in Orrville and realized we were too late.

We waited in Orrville for about an hour but the Corman train never showed up. Either the information about going to Wooster was incorrect and/or they had gone to Warwick first.

We also learned that the NS 4000 was bad ordered in Conway with flat spots. Either those got worked out right away or the report was in error.

As it turned out, the NS 4000 became the trailing unit on the 64T, the UP unit was removed in Conway and the Erie H unit became the leader.

I felt rather dejected as I took Adam home. Had I gone to Warwick we might have caught the Corman train leaving there. It has been a good five years since I’ve photographed the Corman.

I had better luck on the CVSR later in the afternoon. Aside from photographing the last run of the Saturday bike train, I was curious as to what motive power was running on the CVSR these days.

It turned out that the Scenic train had Horizon Rail 8420 on the north end and the Baltimore & Ohio 800 on the south end.

The bike train had the newly repainted 6771 on the north end and the 1822 on the south end. I was glad to see the 6771 because I like the spiffy new livery adorning it.

I got both trains at Indigo Lake and caught a break when the Scenic had a longer than usual dwell time in Peninsula.

The conductor had told the engineer of the 8420 that there might be several people in wheelchairs in Peninsula and if so the train would need to follow a special operating plan.

As I drove north with the intention of getting the bike train at Jaite, I saw the Scenic sitting at Boston Mills station.

I would get both of them at Jaite. With that objective accomplished I headed for home and made plans for another day of holiday railfanning on Sunday.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

The last cars on train 170 were tank cars. The train is moving onto track No. 1.

The R,J. Corman train approaches the Cherry Street NW bridge. It had a red board at Mace.

Here comes the 34T with a UP in the lead splitting the PRR position signals at Mace.

A closeup of the Erie heritage locomotive. Yeah, it’s trailing, but I don’t get to see it often.

I’ve always like the sight of uniform looking unit trains, particularly when they are snaking through switches and curves.

The two units of the R.J. Corman train are on the move.

The Corman train has the signal at Mace. I’ve never seen an indication like this. One light is green and other either amber or lunar.

The Corman train is about to briefly the NS Fort Wayne Line and move through a pair of switches.

Going south to north at Mace.

At last the 740 made its way through Mace. Seeing four trains here in just over an hour was unusual.

Horizon Rail GP10 No. 8420 is back in service and the blue loaner unit has apparently returned for assignment elsewhere. It was nice to see while it lasted.

Reflections of a CVSR coach in the waters of Indigo Lake.

CVSR 800 at Indigo Lake station.

The 1822 was the south unit on the bike train on its last day of operation.

Boarding the bike train at Indigo Lake.

As much as anything, I made this image to get the old truck waiting at the grade crossing for the northbound Scenic.

A B&O “heritage unit” passes the former B&O train order office in Jaite.

Another photo op with the new look CVSR locomotive livery, this time at Jaite.

The last scheduled bike train of the season is on the last leg of its last trip to Brecksville.