That Nickel Plate Look on the Ohio Central

In its early years the Ohio Central used a livery that was reminiscent of a scheme used by the Nickel Plate Road. That was appropriate because tracks used by the OC between Harmon and Zanesville via Sugarcreek and Coshocton were once part of the NKP system.

Shown above is GP9 No. 99 with an excursion train in Dennison on May 24, 1994, sitting on former Pennsylvania Railroad rails. Toward the end of the Jerry Jacobson era of the OC, the railroad had a pair of F9A units painted in a livery similar to the pinstripe livery of the Pennsy from the 1950s.

Article and Photograph by Craig Sanders

A Geep and an Alco

It is Sept. 27, 1997, in Sugarcreek, Ohio. It’s a sunny and pleasant fall day and two Ohio Central steam locomotives are in town and operating. No. 1551 is handling the Baltic tourist train while No. 1293 brought into town a special sponsored by the Orrville Railroad Historical Society.

I was aboard the latter train and during the layout I walked around and made several photographs. There also was an Ohio Central freight train working in town at one point.

In the top image a crew member stands an the rear platform of GP10 No. 7561, which still wears Conrail colors. In the bottom image, the 7561 is coupled to Alco RS3 No. 1077.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Steam Saturday: An Ohio Central Steam Memory

Between 1989 and 2003 the Ohio Central operated a daily except Sunday excursion train between Sugarcreek and Baltic. For much of the life of this operation, the train was pulled by 4-6-0 No. 1551, but in the latter years the 4-6-2 No. 1293 drew the assignment. No. 1293 and its train are shown southbound in Baltic in mid-1999.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Ohio Central Geeps Two for Tuesday

During the time that it was owned by the late Jerry Jacobson, the Ohio Central System has a locomotive fleet that could fairly be described as eclectic.

Most OC units were painted in the railroad’s maroon and gold livery but not all of them. It was not unusual to see a unit in an oddball scheme pulling trains until it found its way to the paint shop or was sold to another company.

The top image was made in Dennison on May 21, 1994. No. 3216 is a GP40 wearing the OC livery that at the time was still somewhat new. It was built in November 1968 for Penn Central and wound up on the Conrail motive power roster.

No. 3216 would later go to work for the Buckingham Branch Railroad in Virginia.

The bottom image was made at Morgan Run on June 8, 2002, and shows a GP10 still in the colors it came with. This unit began life in January 1956 as an Illinois Central GP9.

It had a series of owners before it showed up on the OC including Qwest Communications Corporation, which painted it silver and black, and MidSouth and Gulf & Mississippi. It would later wind up on the Everett Railroad in Pennsylvania.

Photographs by Craig Sanders

Yet They Were F Units

During the early 2000s the Ohio Central acquired a pair of F7A cab units that it used in excursion train service.

Both units were rated at 1,500 horsepower and came to the OC from the Gettysburg Railroad. Each had been built for the Milwaukee Road, although not in the same year. No. 1000 was built in 1951 while No. 1001 rolled off the assembly line in 1950.

They were painted a rust red color and carried “Ohio Central System” gold lettering on their flanks.

Neither unit received an Ohio Central livery and their stay at the railroad would be relatively brief. By early 2007 they had moved on to the Aberdeen, Carolina & Western in North Carolina.

I never thought the scheme the 1000 and 1001 had during their time on the Ohio Central was all that attractive. But they were F units and in the early 2000s there weren’t many of those still around outside of museums.

In the photograph above, the pair is seen on one end of an excursion train that originated in Zanesville and ran to New Lexington on Oct. 14, 2001.

The train traveled the Ohio Southern Railroad and the excursion ran shortly after the route had been reopened following years of being mothballed.

The former Pennsylvania Railroad branch had been rehabilitated in a $12 million project largely funded by the State of Ohio, which had purchased the line in the early 1980s.

It was mostly cloudy on the day of the excursion with occasional peeks of sunshine. One of those came as the train was getting into position in Zanesville for boarding.

This would be the only time that I photographed Ohio Central operations in Zanesville. The 1000 and 1001 would eventually be supplanted by a pair of F9A units that were painted in a striking livery that was reminiscent of the PRR pinstripe livery of the 1950s. But that is another story for another day.

Article and Photograph by Craig Sanders

Ohio Central Two for Tuesday

Here are two photos of Youngstown & Austintown GP7 No. 1501, formerly a Pittsburgh & Lake Erie unit, on the Ohio Central in July 1998. The top image shows the 1501 sitting in Sugarcreek,. The bottom image was made of it pulling a southbound train approaching Baltic.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

Ohio Central Triple Play Near Coshocton

Here are three photos of Ohio Central SD45R No. 7499 taken with my 4MP Olympus camera near Coshocton on July 29, 2004. The views are across a field with the Ohio Route 83 bridge in the background and a different view across a field. The 7499 was built as an SD45 for Southern Pacific in May 1968.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

Running Light in Beach City

Both of these photographs were made in Beach City, Ohio, on Sept. 2, 2009.

Both locomotives are GE B23-7R units. No. 4094 is still wearing the colors and markings of the New Castle Industrial Railroad.

The locomotive has a history that is as colorful as its livery. It was built in June 1972 for the Western Pacific. It would later be on the rosters of the Monongahela, Conrail and Norfolk Southern before going to the NCIR.

No. 4093 was built for the WP the same month as the 4094. It, too, was on the rosters of the MGA and Conrail but went to CSX after the Conrail break up.

The light power move shown here was running southward.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

Ohio Central Consecutive Roster Numbers

Although not on the same train or part of the same motive power consist, the sequence above shows consecutively numbered Ohio Central U23B units both of which were once owned by Conrail.

In the top photo OHCR 4092 is working in Coshocton on Nov. 12, 2009.

In the bottom photo OHCR 4093 is northbound on R.J. Corman (ex-Baltimore & Ohio) trackage in Massillon on April 19, 2010.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

A Fleeting Wisp of Ohio Central Glory

I’ve been going through my slide collection in recent weeks and scanning images to post online.

It’s been a diversion from the COVID-19 pandemic and brought back pleasant memories of what seemed to have been happier and less threatening times.

The photograph above of an Ohio Central passenger excursion train, though, is not one of those recent scans.

I scanned this image several months ago but have thus far refrained from posting it because of its lackluster quality.

Yet it’s the type of image in which I find myself taking solace these days and the fact that it’s less than ideal doesn’t matter.

I made this image on July 31, 2004, on a wood bridge at the west edge of West Lafayette, Ohio. The excursion originated in Columbus and was bound for Train Festival 2004 in Dennison.

It was one of several excursion trains I photographed that day during an event like few others I experienced in Ohio.

It was not an ideal day for train photography due to overcast skies and rain and drizzle. The slide is dark suggesting an under exposed image.

This photo has been sitting in a folder on my computer awaiting a decision to post it or delete it.

Sometimes a photograph has to wait for the right moment to be displayed, a moment when the content outweighs whatever technical flaws it has.

I was always a fan of the Pennsylvania Railroad inspired livery that Ohio Central FP9A units 6313 and 6307 had.

I once sat at a table with the late Jerry Jacobson at an Akron Railroad Club event and heard him say how much it cost to get those locomotives custom painted. I don’t recall the figure, but it wasn’t cheap.

Jerry talked about that expense in the same causal way that most people speak of how much they spent for dinner at a Bob Evans restaurant. In the scheme of things it isn’t that much.

I don’t have too many photographs of the Ohio Central FP9As in this livery and I didn’t see them operate very often.

Sure, I wish I had more photographs, but having regrets is as much a part of being a railfan photographer as bragging about what you did capture.

Everyone has missed out on something and everyone has something they wish that had more of than they do.

Everyone also can speak about days when they wished the weather and lighting had been better.

Having something is better than having nothing so although this isn’t one of my best images it reminds me of a day when I was there for something special.

There never was another train festival in Dennison or anywhere else on the Ohio Central like the 2004 event that was attended by 27,000 people.

Although the two steam locomotives that operated that day are at the Age of Steam Roundhouse, Jerry sold the FP9A locomotives and they can’t be seen in their PRR lookalike livery.

During the pandemic it is easy to think about what we can’t do.

It remains to be seen what end game the pandemic will bring, but for now we can look forward to some day resuming doing things we used to do without giving them a second thought.

Yet some things are not coming back. The steam excursions and other special movements that Jerry made possible may have lasted several years but in looking back on them now their time seems to have been rather fleeting.

Fortunately, our memories and photographs of those moments are not.