I took this photo of Penn Central SW7 No. 9098 from Fairhope Tower in Canton in mid/early-late 1972. The tower was located just just east of the Pennsylvania Railroad yard in Canton. Fairhope was where the Bayard Cutoff diverged from the Fort Wayne Line.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Penn Central GP40 No. 3186 is westbound about to cross under the ex-Pennsylvania Railroad signal bridge just west of Broadway Avenue in Canton in September 1972.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Penn Central Nos. 4211, 4024, 4035, 4025, 4060, and 2925 with Mail 9 are westbound past Fairhope Tower on the east end of the former Pennsylvania Railroad yard in Canton on Sept. 9, 1972. Mike Ondecker must have been with me to write down all the numbers.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Detroit Edison U30C No. 007 is on the Penn Central mainline in Alliance on July 9, 1972. DE locomotives were a common sight in Northeast Ohio into the early 1990s.
DE was one of four utility companies to acquire its own fleet of locomotives to haul coal trains to their power plants.
In the case of DE, it purchased U30C and SD40 locomotives. In all, DE has 22 locomotives, which wore a blue and silver livery.
The fleet lasted for more than 30 years with several of the units acquired by locomotive leasing companies after DE retired them.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
It is the early Penn Central era in Canton, either late 1968 or early 1969. A westbound freight has a motive consist of Penn Central, Pennsylvania and a Bangar & Aroostook unit. This lash-up and its train are about to meet an eastbound freight.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
It is very early in the Penn Central era in Painesville. How early? The merger of the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads was less than a month old.
So there was still plenty of motive power around carrying the markings of those carriers, including NYC F units 1675 and 1702, and PRR GP9 7146, which are wheeling a westbound on Feb. 24, 1968.
There was still passenger service here then, hence the boarding platforms in the foreground.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
It is 1968 or 1969 in Cleveland and we are looking at the south end of Penn Central’s Collinwood diesel shop where stored locomotives were serviced and repainted. Many a former New York Central unit came in here with the mighty oval but left with the PC mating worms herald. But look beyond these and see what used to be and now is not.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Although Penn Central had been in operation for more than eight months when this photograph was made on Nov. 29, 1968, former New York Central F7A 1696 was still looking much its former self as it sat in Toledo.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
How is this for a motive power consist? There are Alco, GE and EMD units pulling this Penn Central westbound train in Alliance in August 1972. The lead unit, PC 6300 is an Alco C628. A GE U33B is also in the motive power lineup. Of note in the background is a transfer caboose and a Burlington boxcar.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
You can’t tell from this angle but that is a former Pennsylvania Railroad FP7 sitting at the locomotive service rack at Collinwood Yard in Cleveland in either 1968 or 1969. That would make it a Penn Central locomotive although not but too long.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
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