The wayback machine has landed us in the late 1960s at the Norfolk & Western engine facility in Brewster. Around the turntable can be found EMD F7As, EMD SDs, Fairbanks-Morse switchers, and a single FM road switcher. Second generation power can be seen behind these treasures.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Here are two views of vintage Norfolk & Western motive at Gambrinus Yard near Canton. In the top image is the 2152, a Fairbanks-Morse H12-44 captured in February 1973. In the bottom photograph a pair of N&W locomotives await their next assignment on Oct. 11, 1980.
Photographs by Robert Farkas
If locomotives could talk, what would they talk about? The hard pulls they had to make? The engineers who abused them? Their favorite engineers? The places they’ve seen? The close calls at grade crossings?
They would probably discuss all of that and more.
This image was made in late 1968 or early 1969 at the Norfolk & Western engine facility in Akron.
There is still a mix of N&W and Akron, Canton & Youngstown locomotives to be seen, including three Alco switchers, two Fairbanks-Morse road switchers, and an EMD geep.
All too soon the FM’s would go on to other locations and any AC&Y lettered locomotives would be re-lettered or repainted into an N&W identity.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Norfolk & Western Alco C425 No. 1004, G:P9 No. 746. SD9, No. 2350 and another EMD SD series locomotive are sitting outside the shops in Brewster on July 3,1972. The two SDs to the right are in the engine facility.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Norfolk & Western No. 3597 is shown in Bellevue in June 1973. The former Wabash unit is an Alco-repowered Fairbanks Morse Train Master.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Technically this is a Norfolk Southern train, but Norfolk & Western-painted SD40-2 No. 1634 and its train are in Frank, Ohio, on July 14, 1984, the Sandusky District.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Norfolk & Western Alco RS11 No. 398 sits at the former Akron, Canton & Youngstown engine facility in Akron in mid-1974. The unit was built for N&W in 1959.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
The wayback machine has landed us in Brewster on Sept. 3, 1980. This was Norfolk & Western territory then after having been in the domain of the Nickel Plate Road for more than a decade and of the original Wheeling & Lake Erie for several decades before that. Laid out before us is a nice array of N&W motive power of the early 1980s. Note that this was during the transition between N&W heralds.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Norfolk & Western No. 2149, a former Nickel Plate Road Fairbanks-Morse H12-44 sits outside the shops in Brewster in June 1975. The unit is worn and a little battered, but that comes with the territory of having been a hard worker for all these years on the railroad.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Sometimes I forget just how large the Wheeling & Lake Erie/Nickel Plate/Norfolk & Western shops are at Brewster.
I haven’t been to the shops in nearly two decades, but on the Sunday afternoon of Nov. 3, 1968, I was there.
Permission for photography everywhere but inside the shops was quickly given and I went out to take photos.
I must have had my wide-angle lens on my camera to get so much (but not all) of the building in the scene. More than likely I was taking a photo of the locomotives (FM H12-44, EMD SD7 or EMD SD9, and Alco switcher) more than of the scene.
Looking at the shops then, I probably did not realize that the W&LE had built steam locomotives inside the shops. To find only three locomotives outside was a surprise since often five to seven would have been in this scene.
Memories brought on by images such as this make me remember how blessed I am.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
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