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

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.

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

The Nickel Plate on The (ex) Nickel Plate

Despite the gloomy weather last past Saturday I managed to get a photo of the Nickel Plate Road heritage unit on home rails in Willoughby passing the well known Willoughby Coal landmark. It was leading train No. 206.

UPDATE:  NS 8100 was reported early Thursday morning (Jan. 16) was leading train 206 again. Looks like another repeat of the NKP on the ex-NKP sometime this afternoon. The Lackawanna heritage unit was reported to be leading train 205 from Buffalo to Cleveland early Thursday morning as well.

Photograph by Roger Durfee

Touch of Spring on the Cleveland Line

The 65R rolls past the Bedford Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks just after 3 p.m. on Friday, April 26.

The afternoon of Friday, April 26 was a pleasant spring day so I decided to do some railfanning before traveling to Akron for the Akron Railroad Club meeting. I knew there were some flowing trees in the parking lot of Tim Lally Field/Willis Picnic Area of the Bedford Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks.

The park is adjacent to Norfolk Southern’s Cleveland Line. This is the same place that the ARRC will be having its summer picnic this July.

In a case of what a difference a year makes, I had been here on the afternoon before a spring 2012 ARRC meeting and these same trees were blooming. But that was in March and not April. The trees and other vegetation are blossoming about a month later this year due to the extended cold and snowy winter.

Whatever the case, I had a nice day and NS was cooperating by running traffic at a fairly steady pace. Just before leaving home I had checked a couple of Internet sources and discovered that the 65R, a train of empty tank cars bound for the BNSF in Chicago, had been reported past Enon Valley, Pa., at 12:35 p.m.

Earlier in the day, this train had been reported as having the Central of New Jersey heritage unit in the motive power consist. But it had been changed out at Conway Yard near Pittsburgh and replaced with the Nickel Plate Road heritage unit.

The traffic mix was intermodal and manifest freight trains with one auto rack train thrown in. I didn’t see any coal or stone trains.

The flowering trees at this location are small and not overly dramatic. But it still says spring and getting blooming trees and trains together is not easy to do.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

The NS 8100 Was Back

The Nickel Plate Road heritage unit made a nice surprise move past work on Wednesday evening. It had been spotted on a 14N (Elkhart to Conway) as the trailing unit behind one of the Operation Life Saver dash 9’s before stopping at Rockport to work.

Other units were added to the consist, the OLS unit was buried and the 8100 was made the leader. After their work was completed, the train departed off the West Park at CP Ram.

Maintenance of way had Track No. 1 out of service by Motor Yard, so the 14N got held for three westbounds at CP 114. But, eventually, it rolled past my yard on main No. 2. Now if they would just send the Virginian my way.

Article and Photographs by Roger Durfee

The Railfan Paparazzi Were Out in Force

Here is my take on Norfolk Southern train 310 with the Nickel Plate Road Heritage unit leading. Seeing the No. 8100 was a pleasant surprise for all of us because earlier reports had it buried in the consist and facing west on a grain train at Bellevue.

Once the word got out that it was indeed leading the 310, the railfan “paparazzi” came out in full force (including me) due to Northeast Ohio finally getting a decent day weather wise.

The timing was perfect for me. Even though I had plans to photograph NS No. 1072, the Illinois Terminal H unit in Avon Lake, I broke away and headed for Elyria.

If I couldn’t get the 8100 on the former NKP, a location that said “New York Central” would work for me.

The classic ex-NYC milepost 205 signal bridge in Elyria was just that place. After two other eastbound trains, the 310 showed up. After that, it was off to catch a couple other moves up on the former NKP main and photograph the other side of the 1072. But that will be another blog entry.

Article and Photographs by Roger Durfee