The February meeting of the Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts will feature a program by Mark Demaline.
Titled Six Decades of Change at Berea, Ohio,1974-2022, the program will feature trains of Penn Central, Conrail, Amtrak, Norfolk Southern and CSX.
There will be images of trailers on flat car trains with cabooses, double-stacked container trains, Detroit Edison coal trains and trains with distributed motive power.
Also featured will be right-of-way views, vintage freight cars and more.
The meeting will begin at approximately 8:15 p.m. on Friday (Feb. 17) at the Church of the Redeemer, 23500 Center Ridge Road in Westlake.
The annual Dave McKay Day of the Akron Railroad Club has been set for Aug. 6 in Berea.
Attendees will be treated to trains of Norfolk Southern and CSX and, maybe, the Wheeling & Lake Erie. Those who arrive early enough will be able to catch Amtrak, although it is likely to be dark when the passenger carrier comes through.
As always, the event begins when the first arrives and ends when the last person leaves.
Attendees are advised to bring a lawn chair and to park at the far west end of the parking lot for the Berea depot restaurant.
The event is named after the late Dave, McKay, who served as ARRC president for 12 years before stepping down in late 2004. He died in late December of that year.
It was a typical dreary Northeast Ohio winter day in Berea. In looking back, I’m not sure why I bothered to create photographs at all given the conditions. But I did.
On a day such as this, the appearance of an eastbound CSX interrmodal train led by a pair of BNSF “pumpkins” was a welcome sight because it gave the day a splash of bright color.
I had forgotten that I made these images until I went looking for something else and found these photos, which were made on Feb. 1, 2014.
There’s a song by The Monkees titled Daydream Believer that has a line that goes “the 6 o’clock alarm would never ring.”
On most mornings that I don’t have to work that would be a good thing, but on Thanksgiving morning, the 6 a.m. alarm had better ring; I’ve got trains to watch.
Up and out the door ASAP, I could hear a train rumble off in the distance as I headed to my Jeep in the parking lot of my apartment complex.
I turned on the scanner to hear “eye oh 20, Clear 14, two east”
“Take it easy approaching the tunnels eye oh 20; eye 157 is coming west and he’ll go first,” the CSX dispatcher announced.
I decided to head straight to Berea, with a stop at the drive-thru at Dunkin’ Donuts for some breakfast along the way.
I took one bite of my croissant sandwich when a headlight appeared to the east on CSX. I 157 was approaching. At 6:54 a.m. the first train of the day was logged. CSX 4551 and CSX 5389 were heading a train of stacks and racks.
I had breakfast finished by the time the time the next move came by. It was NS 13Q. This mixed freight was lead by a trio of NS 1189, NS 1184 and CSX 490.
As the last cars of 13Q were going by a headlight on CSX heralded an eastbound. This was Q560 with CSX 5346 and . . . “hey, what’s that last unit,” I thought to myself.
I caught the number as 4006. It was painted like an American Flag on the front and camouflage on the rear. “Have to look that up when I get home.”
About 10 minutes later NS had a hi-rail truck patrolling No. 1 track from Berea down to CP Drawbridge. NS would be single tracking for the near future.
The scanner was quiet, and I was getting tired of sitting, so I walked down Depot Street to Rocky River Drive and looked over the bridge replacement that NS is doing where Rocky River Drive goes under their tracks.
A couple of hundred feet short of my Jeep, a light rain started to fall. This would be with us most of the day.
The brief lull was broken by back-to-back CSX ethanol trains. The first was led by Union Pacific 2660 and NS 4027. The second had Canadian National 8963 up front and CN 3048 on the rear.
Just before the 9 o’clock hour was to begin, an NS westbound mixed freight made an appearance. They weren’t calling signals, so I didn’t get the symbol, but it had NS 7592, UP 5302 and NS 7553 up front.
Next up at 9:47 an NS 16G made an appearance. This mixed freight was lead by NS 9546 and UP 8611. By now some of the attendees who had gone to breakfast at Bob Evans were arriving.
“Did you see the KCS Veteran’s Unit go by?” one of them asked. “So that’s what that was.”
NS had double stacks to run next at 10:13 a.m. as 20T rumbled past behind NS 7575/ NS 7577 and NS 1178.
Before 20T could clear, a fast charging I 166 slammed past behind CP 8502 up front and CP 8777 about half way back.
At 10:32 a.m. we watched NS 26E go by behind NS 4268, NS 8006 and NS 9956. The 26E is a doublestack train.
I had to think about leaving soon, so I was off, but I did catch two additional CSX trains on the way home. These included a westbound mixed freight went that went under Front Street as I was going over, and I got stopped at Holland Road crossing by an eastbound stack train that turned out to be I 158. It had CSX 9045 leading one other CSX unit.
So if you’re keeping score, it was CSX 7, NS 6. Not a bad four hours of railfanning, with motive power from six of the seven Class 1 railroads. No BNSF this year.
I just wish the weather would cooperate and we could have a sunny Turkey Day. Maybe next year.
RRE members watch I 166 pass through Berea. That is Marty Surdyk’s silver jeep behind them.Bob Todten takes shelter from the rain in his vehicle.Here comes the I 166 as NS train 20T passes nearby.An eastbound NS manifest freight with Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific motive power passes through Berea.
Despite the cool temperatures and steady rain, a few brave Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts members still made it to Berea for the 46th Annual Turkey Shoot on Thanksgiving Day, Nov 25, 2021.
Marty Surdyk and Bob Todten arrived first, followed by another five members.
Both CSX and Norfolk Southern ran a few trains, including the I 166, the Canadian Pacific run through train on CSX with a 1+1 pair of CP GE’s which looked like they had previously been in coal train service, given their coating of what looked like coal dust on their car bodies.
In the photographs above, that is Marty’s silver Jeep behind the group and Bob Todten, sitting in his SUV, avoiding the then-steady downpour.
Back in 1975, Bob and I started what has become this annual tradition.
My one and thus far only catch of the Central of Georgia heritage locomotive came in March 2015
Early Monday morning I opened my new email folder expecting to find a message from Edward Ribinskas containing a photograph of the Central of Georgia heritage locomotive of Norfolk Southern passing through Berea.
Ed had told me of his plans to attend a Frontier League baseball game in Avon Lake on Sunday afternoon with Marty Surdyk. They had planned to railfan in Berea before going to the game.
Catching the NS 8101 may have surprised Ed and Marty, but it didn’t surprise me.
On Saturday evening I had checked HeritageUnits.com to see if anything was setting up to come through Berea Sunday morning that they might catch.
I noticed an 11N with the NS 8101 was making its way across Pennsylvania en route to Sterling Heights, Michigan, from Doremus, New Jersey.
On Sunday morning I checked HU.com again to see how far west the 8101 had been reported.
The latest report was in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, at 10:54 p.m. on Saturday. Had the 8101 been leading an intermodal train it more than likely would have been through Northeast Ohio hours before Marty and Ed arrived in Berea.
But the 11N works Conway Yard near Pittsburgh and manifest and bulk commodity trains don’t always move expeditiously, sometimes getting held for long periods of time for higher priority traffic and/or a new crew.
On Sunday afternoon I checked HU.com and found the 11N was reported at Berea at 11:05 a.m. or 11:07 a.m., depending on whose report you want to believe.
That would have been within the window of when I expected Ed and Marty to be in Berea; hence I was looking for Ed to send a photo of the 8101.
The two of them also caught DC to AC conversion unit 4000, one of the “Blue Brothers” locomotives that are so named because of a blue and gray livery.
You may recall reading in Ed’s report as well as a post Marty had written about his formula for having railfan success that getting the 8101 on Sunday morning completed Marty’s collection of photographs of all 20 NS heritage units.
Marty is correct in saying that success in catching out of the ordinary trains and locomotives hinges in part in doing your homework. Likewise, he is correct in saying that there is a lot of luck involved in being in the right place at the right time to catch something.
Neither Ed nor Marty indicated it they checked HU.com before heading for Berea on Sunday. If they had they might have found out as I did that there was a chance they might see the Central of Georgia H unit.
I say might because the latest report on HU.com before they actually saw the 8101 was the previous evening in Johnstown. If anyone saw it in Alliance and anywhere else east of Cleveland, they didn’t report it.
Likewise, the most recent report on NS 4000 was at Rochester, Pennsylvania, at 8:19 p.m. on Saturday.
Relying on HU.com or other online reports, e.g., Facebook, sometimes can only take you so far in determining what lies down the tracks that is headed your way.
That means Marty is also correct in saying that above all you need to be there if you want to catch something out of the ordinary or, sometimes, anything at all.
By coincidence the Central of Georgia H unit was the last one I needed to complete my check list of NS heritage units. When I finally photographed the 8101 on March 12, 2015, in Olmsted Falls, it was not the first time I had seen it.
I had seen it at least once but had not been in a position to get a photograph. One of those sightings occurred as I drove east on Chester Avenue in Cleveland and it passed in front of me on the Cleveland Line bridge over the street.
Although I’ve forgotten the details I have a hazy memory of having had a few near misses in getting NS 8101 in the weeks and months leading up to finally bagging it.
Alas, I haven’t seen or photographed the 8101 since then.
While researching this article I noticed that had Ed and Marty gone back to Berea or even to Olmsted Falls after the baseball game they could have caught the Monongahela H unit, which came west leading the 25Z.
It was reported at Berea at 7:23 p.m. but that probably was too late for them to still be trackside.
At some point you just have to call it a day, move on to other things, and hope that luck is still with you next time you are trackside.
We all need to remind ourselves from time to time that railfanning for most of us is a hobby and not a job with all of the pressures and demands that come with it. I have met railroad photographers who make rail photography into something akin to work.
They come back with some spectacular images that we all admire and enjoy. Maybe we even wish we could have gotten that image. You could have if you had been willing to do the work required to get it.
Yet is going to work the reason why you go trackside? For some the answer is yes.
As for Ed and Marty, I have a hunch that even if their Sunday in Berea had been just another routine day and the NS 8101 and NS 4000 had never come along they still would have enjoyed themselves and not been greatly disappointed about the two that got away.
I was able to witness Marty Surdyk’s completion of his Norfolk heritage units photo collection when he caught No. 20, the Central of Georgia No. 8101, in Berea on Sunday.
It was leading train 11N, which operates from Doremus, New Jersey, to Sterling Heights, Michigan, in the Detroit area.
The 11N came through shortly after 11 a.m.
We also were able to get DC to AC conversion unit 4000, one of the NS “Blues Brothers.”
It was the second unit of the motive power consist of the 13Q, a Conway to Elkhart manifest freight that operates via Bellevue and Fort Wayne.
The 13Q preceeded the 11N by about 20 minutes.
As Marty indicated in his article, we were in Berea on late Sunday morning before watching a Frontier League baseball game in Avon Lake.
The Crushers center fielder was Shawon Dunston Jr. You may remember his father played shortstop with the Chicago Cubs from 1985-1995.
You begin with preparation. Study maps, magazine articles, rail photo sites, and employee timetable, where applicable.
Learn when the trains run. Learn where the good photo spots are. Learn the radio frequencies. Learn the mileposts, so if you hear a detector go off, you know where the train is. Learn, Learn Learn.
This accounts for 50 percent of the formula.
Next you have to get there. All this prep work is no good if you’re sitting at home in your LazyBoy watching reruns of Leave It To Beaver.
Be There, Be There, Be There.
This is 25 percent of the formula.
Then there is the dumb luck factor. You’re in the right place at the right time and something goes by that you weren’t expecting.
You come across a train on an obscure short line or run into a heritage unit that you didn’t know was coming.
The usually nocturnal train or trains are running hours late and your train count soars to a level you weren’t expecting. Luck can work the other way also, that why it’s LUCK.
Better to be Lucky than good sometimes.
Luck accounts for 25 percent of the formula.
Sunday was a good example of the luck factor. Eddie and I were at Berea killing time before heading to Avon Lake for the Lake Erie Crushers baseball game against the Washington (Pennsylvania) Wild Thing.
The Crushers lost 4-2. But while at Berea Norfolk Southern train 11N went west with the Central of Georgia heritage unit on the lead.
It is the last of the 20 original H units that I needed to complete my collection. We had no idea it was coming.
So to recap, 50 percent of successful railfanning comes from preparation; 25 percent of successful railfanning comes from being there; 25 percent of successful railfanning comes from dumb luck.
You begin with preparation. Study maps, magazine articles, rail photo sites, and employee timetable, where applicable.
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