Fine Day Railfanning in Wine Country

An eastbound CSX strack train passes a sitting westbound manifest freight outside North East, Ohio.

Ed Ribinskas and I got together last Thursday to do some railfanning in the wine country around North East, Pennsylvania, and in Conneaut, Ohio.

Our primary objective was to spend time at Bort Road just outside of North East.

The one lane wood deck bridge remains in place despite efforts by highway department officials over the years to remove it and replace it with a new bridge closer to North East.

I don’t know where those plans stand or even if they are active.

Bort Road long has been a favorite railfan hangout location where you can photograph trains on the CSX Erie West Subdivision from the bridge and on the Lake Erie District of Norfolk Southern. The lines are of New York Central and Nickel Plate Road vintage respectively.

We arrived around 9:45 a.m. to find the rear of a westbound CSX manifest freight sitting to the west of the bridge.

Although we never learned the details, it appeared that CSX was single tracking west of North East.

Shortly thereafter a relatively short eastbound CSX strack train came rushing through. The westbound manifest then moved on and to our displeasure CSX then went into a siesta that lasted for more than two hours.

CSX is by far the busier of the two railroads here so that was not good news.

However, NS came to life around 10:30 a.m. when a four-car eastbound local came by.

The crew of the local talked with the dispatcher about working in Ripley, New York. That conversation yielded the news that two westbounds were coming on NS.

The first of those showed up in relatively short order and appeared to be calling the symbol 18N, which we believed to be the Buffalo, New York, to Conway Yard near Pittsburgh train.

However, in looking at online listings of NS train symbols the 18N is shown as originating in Conway and operating to New Jersey. The Buffalo to Conway train is 15M so maybe we misheard the symbol. It sure sounded like 18 and not 15.

Behind that train was the 309 but the train that operates from East Binghamton, New York, to Elkhart, Indiana, was held while the local did its work in and near Ripley.

Whatever the case, we endured a lull that lasted until about 12:30 p.m. when the 309 came past led by a lone BNSF unit.

The CSX lull finally began to break at 12:45 p.m. the same time I had been planning to leave to go to the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East to check out what was new before heading to Conneaut.

But CSX came back to life right around the time I planned to leave, sending the I002 eastward.

Shortly thereafter came a third NS westbound that caught us by surprise. We never got the symbol of that train.

Then came a long westbound CSX stack train that stopped west of the bridge. As I suspected, it was waiting for an eastbound which turned out to be the empty trash train for the East Coast.

As we arrived at the museum in North East, a westbound CSX manifest freight was passing by.

New to the collection since was my last visit was GEAC60CW No. 6002 in a GE livery.

We were dismayed to see how badly faded the paint was on the former Chesapeake & Ohio B30-7 No. 8272, which arrived at the museum in 2017 freshly repainted in a Chessie System livery.

Also looking the worse for wear was New York Central U25b No. 2800.

I suppose that locomotive that sit out in the elements all year long are going to lose some of their luster in time.

From the museum we made our way to Conneaut to check out the progress of the new bridge NS is building over Conneaut Creek.

During our time there we saw one eastbound leave town on NS. CSX sent an eastbound and westbound past us as we sat next to the Conneaut Historical Society across the tracks from the Conneaut railroad museum.

It was time for us to call it a day and head to Geneva where we met up with our respective spouses for dinner at the Old Mill Winery. While there we saw though the windows of the restaurant one of those NS westbound that we had photographed earlier in the day at Bort Road.

It’s always nice to get “one more” to conclude the day.

Article by Craig Sanders, Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Wabtec Donates Unit to Lake Shore Museum

Wabtec has donated an Erie-built locomotive to the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania.

The unit, GECX 6002, a GE-built AC6000 is one of the most powerful diesel locomotives ever built and is the first AC traction unit to be preserved by a museum.

The 6002 arrived at the museum on March 17.

Although built in 1998 for the Union Pacific, the 6002 was returned to GE to become part of the company’s engineering test fleet.

At that time it was repainted red and gray. It has since been retired.

The Lake Shore museum specializes in collecting GE locomotives built at the nearby GE assembly plant in Lawrence Park.

Three-Way Meet in North East

It’s a three-way meet with history at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, on Sept., 29, 2012. The CSX westbound is on Track 1 of the Erie West Subdivision. Looking on are Norfolk Southern B32-8 No. 3562 and South Shore 2-D+D-2 No. 802. The 3562 is the first Dash 8 to be preserved at the museum, which specializes in locomotives built by GE at its Erie locomotive assembly plant in Lawrence Park. The South Shore “Little Joe” is one of just two such locomotives of that carrier that have been preserved with the other located at the Illinois Railway Museum.

Photograph by Craig Sanders

North East Museum Gains 10th Vintage GE Locomotive

The Lake Shore Railway Museum and Historical Society has added a 10^th General Electric-built vintage locomotive to its collection.

The latest addition to the collection in North East, Pennsylvania, is a 45-tonner originally used by the U.S. Army.

No. 10 was built by GE in 1943 and had been sitting at ELG Metals southeast of Pittsburgh.

The company agreed to donate the locomotive to the museum with Wabtec, which now owns the GE locomotive assembly plant in Erie, Pennsylvania, providing technical assistance on how to move the diesel.

The move was handled by Daily Express of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

The Lakeshore museum plans to restore No. 10 to operating condition.
The vintage GE engines are part of a collection that has been named “Locomotives that our parents and grandparents built.”

CSX Tribute Locomotives to Visit Lake Shore Museum

The Lake Shore Railway Historical Society said this week that it will host a visit on Oct. 12 and 13 of the three CSX Pride in Service locomotives at its museum in North East, Pennsylvania.

The GE units, which were all built at the nearby Erie locomotive assembly plant, honor America’s military veterans, first responders, and police.

In a news release posted on its website, the museum said it open at noon on both days and host a night photo session with the three visiting locomotives and its own collection of General Electric locomotives.

The three tribute locomotives were built between between 2008 and 2015 at the Lawrence Park plant when it was owned by GE. The plant is now owned by Wabtec.

The units were repainted in special liveries by CSX workers at its locomotive shops in Huntington, West Virginia.

Those same workers also recreated the “Chessie Cat” Chessapeake & Ohio Railroad paint scheme on GE locomotive No. 8272 that CSX donated to museum in 2017.

Additional information about the museum event can be found at https://lakeshorerailway.com/

CSX Tribute Unit(s) to Visit Lake Shore Museum

At least one of the CSX tribute locomotives is expected to be at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 12 and 13.

The museum said on its Facebook page that it hopes to have all three of the CSX Pride in Service units that weekend but there is no guarantee that will be on hand.

Local fire departments and police departments will be bringing their equipment to the museum during the weekend and a night photo shoot is being planned.

Details on the latter will be announced later, the museum said. The night photo shoot will also focus on the museum’s GE-built Little Joe electric locomotive.

The museum will not be offering on-site parking during event. Visitors will need to park on nearby streets.

Weekend Trip Nets Games, Trains and Rain

An eastbound CSX manifest freight passes the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, late Sunday morning.

It was a 3-2 weekend in Erie, Pennsylvania, for three Akron Railroad Club members.

Marty Surdyk, Ed Ribinskas and Jeff Toutman ventured to Erie to see a pair of minor league baseball games pitting the Erie SeaWolves against the Akron Rubber Ducks that both ended with identical scores of 3-2.

Akron won on Saturday night but Erie returned the favor on Sunday afternoon.

Of course railfanning was on the agenda of the trio on their trip, which started late Saturday afternoon in Painesville.

After checking in at a Red Roof Inn by Interstate 90, they went to UPMC Park for a game that featured fireworks at the conclusion of the Rubber Ducks’ win.

Sunday morning found the trio getting an early start to catch trains at Bort Road near North East under overcast skies.

Shortly after they arrived at 7 a.m., a CSX westbound trash train rumbled past. Less than 10 minutes later came an eastbound on Norfolk Southern.

Amtrak’s eastbound Lake Shore Limited was right on the money shortly after 7:30 a.m. with its usual consist of two P42DC locomotives, three Viewliner sleepers, an Amfleet café car, six Amfleet II coaches, a Viewliner diner and a Viewliner sleeper.

After the passage of Amtrak, the group decided to get breakfast at the Freeport restaurant north of North East, but it wasn’t open yet.

They killed about 15 minutes at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East where they noted a clear signal for a CSX westbound.

But nothing showed and they went back to the Freeport for breakfast, getting there just ahead of a heavy thunderstorm that also swept through Cleveland.

In fact, Ed’s wife, Ursula, texted that the power at their house in Painesville had gone out.

With breakfast completed and the rain letting up, Marty, Ed and Jeff returned to the museum.

Jeff checked HeritageUnits.com on his phone and learned that CSX train K603 with the Chicago & North Western heritage unit of Union Pacific on the point had cleared Lake City, Pennsylvania, at 9:23 a.m.

It must have passed through North East while they were having breakfast up the road. Ed noted the clear signal they had seen earlier must have been for the K603.

However, even if they had stuck around and waited for it they would have been trying to photograph UP 1995 in a downpour.

UP 1995 was later reported by Berea at 2:20 p.m. and Greenwich at 3:14 p.m.

Clearing skies and sunlight were the order of the rest of the morning at the museum along with passing trains.

New in the museum is a CSX U36B that is the eighth GE Erie-built locomotive in the collection.

No. 7764 was built in 1970 as No. 1776 for the Seaboard Coast Line. Its most recent assignment had been serving as a training unit for the Massachusetts Call Volunteer Firefighters Association.

After the Sunday afternoon game concluded, Marty, Ed and Jeff made their way back to Lake County, noting that there was a lot of storm damage in Geneva and Madison.

As they made their way back they stopped in Swanville and Lake City in Pennsylvania, and in Conneaut in Ohio to reminisce about what those places looked like back in the day compared with their modern day appearances.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Amtrak No. 48 was running on time when it passed Bort Road near North East.

Some folks might think they would get a better breakfast at McDonald’s than what Amtrak serves these days to its sleeping car passengers under its contemporary dining program.

The latest member of the collection of GE diesels that were built in Erie is on display at the Lake Shore Railway Museum.

The former Chicago, South Bend & South Shore “Little Joe” is another Erie-built GE unit on display in North East.

The westbound CSX trash train has a full load as it passes Bort Road under overcast skies.

Got There at the Right Time

I didn’t journey to North East, Ohio, last spring for the express purpose of photographing the signal bridge at CP 73, which is located east of the Lake Shore Railway Museum.

But since I was there and I noticed that the CSX signal department was out in force putting in new signals, I decided I better get an image of the old signals.

The top and middle images were made on May 23. Note the new signals at the far left of both images are ready to be placed into service.

The bottom image was made eight days later and features Q020 charging eastbound on Track No. 2 of the Erie West Subdivision.

It was a good thing I made this photo because the following week these signals fell. There are only a handful of the old-style Type G signal heads mounted on their original masts or signal bridges left on CSX between Cleveland and Buffalo, New York.

First Step to a Journey

The New York Central System vanished in 1968, although its passenger trains continue to be operated by Penn Central until the coming of Amtrak in 1971.

The national passenger carrier has step boxes to help passengers take that first step from the ground onto a train, but they are modern contraptions painted bright yellow.

The step boxes used for decades by the railroads are largely gone now, most of them probably scrapped.

Some survive in private railroad memorabilia collections and in museums.

Such is the case with this ex-NYC step box at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania.

It was sitting on the ground next to a passenger car on static display when I spotted it.

Which Central trains did it serve? The Twentieth Century Limited? The Southwestern Limited? The Commodore Vanderbilt? The Pacemaker?

Or did this step box spend its career on lesser trains on branch lines and secondary mainlines?

How many thousands of feet have stepped on this box over the years? Did anyone famous use it?

There are answers to those questions, but they are beyond the reach of us today.

Instead, we can only imagine the places that step box sat in and the people who once used it as their first step to a journey by rail. That might be enough.

Museum Gets Another GE U Boat

The Lake Shore Railway Museum has acquired another historic GE-built locomotive.

This week the museum received a four-axle U36B carrying MCVX reporting marks and the roster number it had when working for CSX (7764).

The museum’s parent organization, the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society said No. 7764 was last with the Firefighters Education and Training Foundation in Massachusetts as a training locomotive for firefighters.

The unit was built in 1970 at GE’s Erie manufacturing facility located in Lawrence Park, Pennsylvania, as Seaboard Coast Line as No. 1776. It was later renumbered 1813.

“The U36B is a very rare GE locomotive model and we are thankful for its inclusion in our collection,” said society President Ray Grabowski Jr. “Its earlier re-purposing as a training unit just enhances Lake Shore’s educational function. Look for it to continue to be used as a teaching tool here soon.”

The North East, Pennsylvania, museum has eight other GE locomotives and one Heisler in its collection.