The Tradition Continues

Uncle Pete lends a hand to NS train 209 on the Chicago Line in Amherst.

I have a tradition during the annual picnic of the Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts in Amherst of walking to the Jackson Street bridge over the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.

The picnic is always held on a Saturday and doesn’t get underway until mid afternoon, so I’m always going up to the bridge in late afternoon.

Usually, I’m joined by RRE member Jerry Jordak. This year was no exception.

We took our places on the bridge around 5 p.m. and staked it out for the next hour and a half.

The light at that time of day clearly favors westbound traffic, which is good because there is a fence on the west side of the bridge where the sidewalk is located.

Fortunately, Jackson Street is not overly busy so we are able to walk to the east edge, get our images and scurry back to the sidewalk.

NS cooperated nicely this year by sending four westbounds our way. This included a pair of stack trains, manifest freight No. 309 and auto rack train No. 287.

The 309 had a Union Pacific leader, which marked the first time I’ve landed foreign power leading a train through Amherst.

The 287 took the siding at CP 213 located just east of Jackson Street en route to Fairlane Yard.

In all the years I’ve photographed from Jackson Street I’ve never caught an NS heritage or special tribute locomotive.

The most interesting sighting we’ve made was the NS executive train in 2014.

There is still bit of heritage left in Amherst. The eastbound home signals for CP 313 still have Type G signal heads even though they now are mounted on a modern support stand.

We also spotted a former Santa Fe cover hopper car that still carried its original markings and reporting numbers.

That was an appropriate find given that the program presented later that evening by Marty Surdyk prominently featured images of Santa Fe trains in in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, California and other points.

 

A Few from NS Chicago Line in Amherst

The westbound 21Q had a pair of Tier 4 compliant locomotives on the point. ET44AC No. 3637 was assembled by GE Transportation in May 2016 and still has that new locomotive look.

The Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts had its annual summer picnic at the former New York Central freight station in Amherst, Ohio, on Sunday, Aug. 7.

As he does for the Akron Railroad Club, Marty Surdyk manned the grill and also showed a one-tray slide show of photographs made during a trip to Oklahoma and Texas in 1999.

The RRE has held its picnic in Amherst for the past several years and as I’ve done in the past I got in some train photography of operations on the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.

Nothing that was particularly out of the ordinary came by during the picnic. In fact, NS traffic was slow and we endured a two-hour lull in late afternoon. But, overall, it was a enjoyable outing highlighted by Marty’s show.

Photographs by Craig Sanders

Another westbound stack train, this one the 25T.

The L13 from Bellevue to Rockport Yard in Cleveland makes an appearance.

A pair of well-worn Canadian National locomotives were in the motive power consist of this westbound frac sand train.

The setting sun was right down the rails as the L13 came past on its way home to Belleveue.

Late Day Blessings on NS at Amherst

The nose of NS No. 2515 glistens in the late day light just after 8 p.m. in Amherst. It would be a pleasing end to a day that had not quite worked out as we had hoped that it would.

The day had not gotten off to the best of starts. As we left Marty’s house there was light rain and overcast conditions.

It was a Saturday afternoon in early August and Marty Surdyk, Tim Krogg and myself were headed for a picnic in Amherst at the former New York Central depot. It is now owned by Nordson Corporation and used as a community center.

But we also had reason to be optimistic. Somewhere to the east the Norfolk Southern executive train was coming our way. The Penn Central heritage unit was also leading a train westward as well. And behind that was another westbound that was reported to have the original Norfolk Southern heritage locomotive on the point.

It just might turn out to be one of those days where you walk away feeling like it was Christmas morning with so many gifts having been passed your way.

But it didn’t quite turn out that way and the lousy weather was the first clue that our results would not match our optimism. But more often than not railfanning is like that.

It did stop raining and we did see the NS executive train, although under cloudier skies than we would have liked. It was the first time that Marty had ever photographed the NS OCS with its classy-looking F units in their “tuxedo” livery.

But the Penn Central H unit never showed while we were there and the NS H unit was too far east into Pennsylvania to get to our location during daylight hours.

Around 7 p.m., after everyone had had their fill of burgers and dogs, Marty and I ventured up to the nearby Jackson Street overpass of the NS Chicago Line.

Nearly all of the clouds had moved out and late day sunlight illuminated the tracks. We might not have been lucky in getting those heritage units that we coveted, but NS did send a fairly steady stream of westbound traffic into that golden light.

After more than an hour of train watching, photography and conversation, it was time to go. It had turned out to be a good day and we had been blessed after all.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders