Catching up With the NKP Heritage Unit

I saw Wednesday night that CSX train Q567 with the Nickel Plate Road heritage unit of Norfolk Southern was coming up the Hudson River. I was hoping I would have some good luck on Thursday for my first photographs of 2022. I waited a little over an hour and it did arrive about 1 p.m. Despite being a cold 27 degrees, it was sunny in the perfect spot and I came away very happy with the results. The train was captured at milepost 153 in Painesville on the Erie West Subdivision.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Steam Saturday: Not That Long Ago, Right?

It’s Aug. 21, 2012 and Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765 is cruising westbound through Canton en route to Bellevue.

The Berkshire type has recently pulled some excursions in Pennsylvania and is ferrying westward.

Those of us who chased the 765 on this move or during its time in Ohio that year probably don’t think this happened that long ago.

It was just few years ago, right? Actually it was almost eight years ago.

The tracks here used to be the mainline of the Pennsylvania Railroad between Chicago and New York.

The NKP was a nominal competitor with the Pennsy in the Chicago-New York passenger market even though the Nickel Plate didn’t have it own track east of Buffalo, New York.

But more that five decades after the PRR last operated its own passenger trains on the run that history has been lost to all except those with an interest in railroad history.

Behind the auxiliary tender of the 765 is the NKP heritage unit of Norfolk Southern.

There is some PRR heritage to be seen here in the signal bridges with Pennsy-style position light signal heads to protect the crossing at WANDLE between the NS Fort Wayne Line and the Wheeling & Lake Erie’s Canton Subdivision. Those signal bridges have since been removed.

It is far from certain that NKP 765 will ever operate on these rails again.

But NS 8100, the NKP heritage unit, could well be helping to pull a regular NS freight train.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

A Nickel Plate Kind of Day

I made it a point on the last day that the Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765 ran on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad to get down to Brecksville to photograph it leading the ferry move to Akron.

But my plans for the rest of the day was to railfan Norfolk Southern in Cleveland.

As the afternoon was winding down, we got wind that the NKP heritage locomotive of NS was in the motive power consist of westbound manifest freight 11K. We decided to get as it passed the Battery Park neighborhood of Cleveland.

The 11K had to wait on the east side of the drawbridge for three eastbounds to go past, the third of which was crossing over at CP Drawbridge.

At last the traffic cleared and the 11K resumed its westward trek. You’ve probably noticed by now that NS 8100 is trailing. Ah well, not everything can be perfect.

Fishing for the NKP Heritage Unit

I was in Conneaut last Sunday when Norfolk Southern delivered a surprise.

NS 8100, the Nickel Plate Road heritage locomotive, was leading Bellevue to Buffalo train No. 316.

The 316 had work to do in the yard, so I had the opportunity to capture it in two places, one of which is the NKP-built trestle over Conneaut Creek.

A bonus for that image was a fisherman wading in the creek to cast his line as the 8100 rumbled over.

I made it a point to get 8100 with the NKP era block signals still standing west of Chestnut Street.

They won’t be there much longer. New signals have been put up and are waiting to be placed into service.

Vestiges of the Nickel Plate are falling by the wayside. Even the NKP trestles are being replaced, although if NS has long plans to replace the bridge in Conneaut it is likely to be awhile.

NKP H Unit on the Original Nickel Plate

The Nickel Plate Road heritage locomotive of Norfolk Southern crosses the trestle in Painesville over the Grand River on Aug. 19.

In a modest way this has been my summer to chase Norfolk Southern heritage units.

In the past month, I’ve photographed the Conrail and Nickel Plate Road H units, both on the original rails of the railroad that they celebrate.

Shown above is NS 8100, the NKP heritage unit on original Nickel Plate rails as it crosses the Grand River in Painesville.

I still am searching for many more, including the Erie, New York Central and original Norfolk Southern. So I have a long ways to go to reach all 20.

Photograph by Peter Bowler

NS 8100 Leads Stone Cars up the Crown

On Sunday morning I was made aware that the Nickel Plate Road heritage unit of Norfolk Southern would be taking a train up the Crown Secondary to Twinsburg.  I always enjoy the opportunity to chase trains on this branch.

The branch diverges from the former C&P mainline at Highland Road in Macedonia and then climbs a tough 2 percent grade crossing Valley View Road and Highland Road again before reaching the summit in Twinsburg.

I arrived at Highland Road just as the NKP unit was returning light for the rest of its train, it having already hauled the first half up the hill.

I was able to get some pictures as the crew retrieved the rest of the train off the new Highland Road overpass.  At this point the train sat for well over an hour as the second engine was having issues with its air lines.

Finally, these problems were resolved and the train continued up the hill to deliver the rest of the train.

Article and Photographs by Todd Dillon

 

 

20W Has Been My Lucky Number of Late

The NS 20W had a myrian variety of hot intermodal shipments as it saunters through Olmsted Falls on Sunday afternoon.

It’s too bad that the Ohio Lottery doesn’t allow players to choose letters with the numbers that they pick. If so, I would have bought tickets on Sunday with the number 20 and the letter W.

On Norfolk Southern, 20W is the symbol for an eastbound intermodal train with UPS and FedEx trailers, among other cargo. Two weeks ago the 20W enabled me to break a heritage unit drought that extended back to last October.

It was in October 2013 that I photographed my last heritage unit leading a train. Technically, the Reading unit that I photographed wasn’t even leading the train. It was the DPU on the rear of an eastbound crude oil train with its nose facing westward.

So if y0u want to pick nits, my previous H unit sighting leading a train that I photographed was the Norfolk & Western unit leading an intermodal train a week earlier.

In the intervening eight months, I saw an H unit on occasion, but it either was trailing — the Wabash twice — or I wasn’t able to get a photograph.  OK, so I saw the New York Central heritage unit at the National Train Day event in Toledo, but it was a sitting duck and not pulling a train. Ditto for the Reading H unit that I saw in Avon Lake on the wye by the power plant.

My drought finally ended two weeks ago when I bagged the original Norfolk Southern H unit leading the 20W.

Yesterday, I saw a report that the 20W had the Nickel Plate Road heritage unit on the lead. I was headed for Olmsted Falls anyway to get a very late running Amtrak No. 49, so I hoped that I could get the NKP unit, too.

The 20W came through again, passing through the Falls at 12:27 p.m., about a half hour after I arrived. Maybe my heritage unit luck is changing for the better.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Passing the Olmsted Falls depot.

There was a slight danger of getting blocked, but I was standing at a grade crossing and could see that the 20W would arrive before the westbound stack train.

A Bit of the NKP in B&O Land

CSX train K055 waits at Lambert for traffic on Monday with the Nickel Plate Road heritage unit on the lead. The view is from the Interstate 76 overpass.

One of the more interesting moves so far this year occurred on Monday and involved the westward run of CSX train K055, an empty oil can train, from Philadelphia to Chicago via the former Baltimore & Ohio main.

What made this one stand out was the Nickle Plate Road heritage unit owned by Norfolk Southern was leading it.

The fans were out in force, including several Akron Railroad Club members. I wasn’t sure I would get done at work in time to see this move, but a delay to the train in New Castle, Pa., allowed me to catch it in Akron.

NS power on CSX has become a weekly occurrence, but this was the first time one of the H units ran on this line. I had elected to try the Thornton Street bridge photo in an effort to show that the 8100 was indeed in Akron since the skyline would be in the background.

he sun was all but gone by the time it reached the bridge so I lowered my angle to avoid the dark train-bright background photo no no. The train got a bit of a delay at Lambert allowing us to set up for another stab at it. The sun cooperated this time as it approached Fairview Avenue in Barberton.

That’s a small section of the former Erie off to the left that is now used by the Akron Barberton Cluster Railway. A quick stop between the two locations netted the “signal maintainers view” of the 8100 stopped at Lambert.

Article and Photographs by Roger Durfee

The view from the Thornton Street bridge was fine, but the clouds did not cooperate in enabling me to make the image that I wanted to make.

Coming toward Fairview Avenue in Barberton.

 

A parting shot at Barberton.

NS H Unit Travels the CSX New Castle Sub

I managed to run out quick and stab the westbound K055 empty oil train on CSX with the Nickel Plate Road heritage unit leading. The first two shots were taken at the Exchange Street signals in downtown Akron. The last shot was taken at Lambert in the far southwest corner of Akron near the border with Barberton where the train had to wait on two eastbounds before continuing its trip.

Photographs by Richard Thompson

 

 

2 for Thursday in NS Heritage Locomotives

Thanks to a heads up from the Akron Railroad Club blog I was able to score a twofer of Norfolk Southern heritage units on Thursday.

In the top photograph, the Lackawanna heritage locomotive leads train 205 through Cleveland on the bridge over the Flats.  I barely just got to the University Inn seconds ahead of the train.

Simultaneously, the Nickel Plate Road heritage unit was leading counterpart train 206 through Cleveland with the two meeting at Rockport yard.  I caught this train off the old Broadway Road overpass (or what’s left of it).

These two railroads have more in common than simply ending up owned by Norfolk Southern many years later.

During the 1950s, the Lackawanna owned a controlling interest in the Nickel Plate with freight and passenger traffic handed off to each other at Buffalo.

The Lackawanna even tried to merge with the NKP at this time. That particular merger failed but both ended up under the NS umbrella.

Article and Photographs by Todd Dillon