NS OCS Makes Northern Ohio Appearance

The executive train of Norfolk Southern is no stranger to Northeast Ohio, but its visits and few and far between enough to make getting it still a treat when the opportunity arises.

Such was the case on Sunday afternoon when operating as symbol 955 the train of A-B-B-A F units and 12 cars can through on the Cleveland Line and then the Chicago Line.

It was en route to Chicago and reportedly stayed overnight in Elkhart, Indiana, before continuing to the Windy City on Monday morning.

I intercepted it in Oak Harbor along with fellow Akron Railroad Club members Marty and Robert Surdyk.

We had been in Fostoria for the annual ARRC longest day outing and decided about 5 p.m. to head up to Oak Harbor, where the 955 came through about 7:20 p.m.

The train did not appear to have anyone aboard other than the head end crew.

NS Bridges of Oak Harbor

One in a periodic series of images that I made last summer

The Toledo District of Norfolk Southern in Oak Harbor has two bridges that make for good photo props.

One bridge carries the tracks over the NS Chicago Line on the west side of town while the other carries the Toledo District over the Portage River.

In the top and middle photograph above, a westbound NS tanker train cruises westbound on the Chicago Line and ducks beneath the Toledo District.

I don’t know the age of that plate girder bridge but it might have been installed by the original Wheeling & Lake Erie. The modern day NS Toledo District was back in the day the W&LE’s mainline to Toledo.

A lot of trains of the New York Central, Penn Central, Conrail and now NS have passed beneath that bridge.

The modern W&LE has trackage rights on the NS Toledo District so you can still see Wheeling trains on the bridge.

The bottom photograph shows an NS train crossing the bridge over the Portage River in a view that was made from the Oak Harbor cemetery.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Changing Times at Oak Harbor

One in a period series of images I made last summer

I don’t get to Oak Harbor that often. It is just far enough away to discourage a day trip there.

But I did get there last summer during an all-day outing that focused primarily on the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.

At the far west end of Oak Harbor just east of North Benton Street is a set of intermediate signals.

I remembered photographing NS trains passing those signals during my first visit to Oak Harbor about 10 years ago.

In particular, I set my camera’s shutter speed to 30th of a second so I could create a blur as the train whizzed by with the blur making it seem as though the train was going 500 miles an hour.

During last summer’s visit to Oak Harbor those old type G signals were still in place, but newer signals were standing next to them waiting to be activated.

Given how little I get to Oak Harbor this was likely going to be the last time I’d photograph those old signals.

So I waited for an intermodal train to come, set the shutter speed of 30th of a second and recreated something I had made years earlier on slide film.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Finding Open Views of the NS Chicago Line

A eastbound Norfolk Southern intermodal train crosses Carroll-Erie Road east of Oak Harbor.

One in a periodic series of images I made last summer

Photographers in the western United States seldom have to look far for an open view unless they are in dense mountainous terrain.

There are times when I envy them when searching for open views of railroads here in Ohio.

Northeast Ohio has some rolling hills, but it also has a lot of trees, which makes finding open views a major challenge.

So imagine the feeling of satisfaction we felt upon finding an open field next to the Chicago Line of Norfolk near Oak Harbor.

It was a July afternoon and we had been exploring the Chicago Line for most of the day.

The open area was adjacent to North Carroll-Erie Road. There was a soybean field next to the tracks and the road, but the plants were not so high that they blocked the view.

We had to wait awhile before we got a train and by the time we left we had seen intermodal trains in each direction.

As I had done at an earlier stop not far from here, I sought to emphasize the country feel of the environment by shooting down the road and across the soybean field.

It still didn’t have the same feel as, say, western Ohio or even Indiana or Illinois. But it still felt like the rural Midwest even if it was just a mile or two from the Lake Erie shore.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

 

Mix of Uncle Pete and Espee

I first encountered the UP 6161 passing the grain elevator at Oak Harbor. I didn’t know it was coming until it showed up.

Coming into Graytown. We were able to get ahead of the train because it had to be talked by a signal that was on the fritz.

Passing the grain elevator in Graytown. The crew of this train would be banner tested a few miles west of here by an NS road foreman. It passed the test and went on its way.

There are well over 100 Union Pacific “patch” locomotives floating around America. They are units still wearing their original colors and markings, but which have received a UP roster number as a patch.

I don’t pay much attention to these patch jobs, but they are tracked on HeritageUnits.com. I suppose there are people who are seeking to collect all of them.

Most of the patch units are of Southern Pacific heritage, but there also are some of Chicago & North Western and Denver & Rio Grande Western vintage.

Every so often one of these patch units gets repainted and removed from HU.

I was out along the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern when I happened upon one of those UP patch jobs, the UP 6361 leading westbound 25E, an auto rack train.

It found it interesting that the 6361 has had its Southern Pacific markings painted over on the body, but not on the nose.

Red lettering reading “Union Pacific” has been applied over the light gray paint used to paint over the SP markings on the flanks.

There are, no doubt, some folks out there who despise patch jobs because the original colors and markings tend to be badly faded and the locomotive is a mish-mash of markings.

If so, UP 6361 is a good example of that. It sorta of looks like an Espee unit, but it has a strong UP identify that doesn’t quite look like UP.

I photographed No. 6163 at Oak Harbor because it was a train that happened to come along and because it is out of the ordinary.

Soon enough all of these SP patch units will be gone, although some might survive if stricken from the roster than then sold to locomotive leasing company which might rent it as is. In that case it would be a double patch.

Then again maybe 6163 will eventually be scrapped before it is repainted. Class 1 railroads have been retiring or furloughing large numbers of their locomotives in the past year because of falling traffic.

No. 6163 may is an “older” unit, having been built in 1995 as SP 101.

Perhaps the fate of No. 6163 (nee SP 101) has been or will be determined soon at a desk in Omaha.

When I last checked, the 6361 was still out working on the UP. It may or may not return some day to Ohio.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

 

The NS Toledo District Parking Lot

This Norfolk Southern train on the Toledo District is stopped short of a grade crossing north of Kingsway where the double track becomes single track.

Back in July, fellow Akron Railroad Club member Peter Bowler and I headed west along the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.

Our journey took us to Oak Harbor and we ended up pursing three eastbounds on the Toledo District.

We noticed that all three of those trains stopped and waited a while just north of Kingsway where double track goes to single track.

I don’t know if this is standard operating procedure or was just an aberration on this particular day.

I’m not sure if I had the correct radio frequency for this line so I never heard any chatter between the trains and the dispatcher.

My first guess was that the trains were stopped because of congestion in Bellevue, which isn’t that far away. It wasn’t for opposing traffic. Someone else suggested later that it could have been because the Fremont local was working and had the mainline tied up.

The first of the three trains we had initially spotted in Graytown. We didn’t realize it was taking the connection at Oak Harbor to the Toledo District until we heard it call the signal for the connection.

We gave chase and thought we had lost the train, which had a pair of Union Pacific units pulling it.

About to give up, I spotted the rear of the train, which appeared to be slowing. It came to a halt just north Kingsway and short of a rural road crossing.

We waited around a while, thinking an opposing train was coming. But that didn’t happen and back to Oak Harbor we went although that for very long.

A grain train on the Chicago Line called a signal that indicated it, too, was diverging onto the connection to the Toledo connection.

We moved over to Union Cemetery in Oak Harbor and got this train crossing the Portage River.

Then it was on the road to see if we could catch it. Like the train we had seen earlier, the grain train stopped short of Kingsway.

We made some more photographs once again headed back to Oak Harbor. To my surprise, I spotted a third eastbound on the Toledo District.

We turned around and intercepted it at a crossing where the gates were going down as we arrived.

The crossing was at the west end of Sewell and the train was headed into the Kingsway siding.

For the third time, we motored to that crossing north of Kingsway where the grain train was still sitting.

After making some photos of the trains sitting side by side, it was back to Oak Harbor as time was getting short and we still wanted to photograph the lighthouse at Marblehead and then get the sunset from Catawba Island State Park.

Somewhere in there we also needed to get something for dinner.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Crossing the Portage River at Oak Harbor.

A barn or shed pays tribute to America.

There are lot of grain hoppers behind that motive power.

The home on the west side of the tracks had an expansive and well-maintained lawn.

That home on the other side of the tracks did not appear to be occupied.

The third eastbound that we saw on the Toledo District.

One advantage of being on the wrong side of the light was being able to make this image of the train passing a nearby field.

Almost into the siding at Sewell.

A long string of boxcars on the rear.

The manifest freight we had seen earlier pulls up alongside the still waiting grain train.

Waiting side by side.

A parting shot of the grain train.