B&O in Akron in 1967

As you requested, we’ve set the wayback machine to December 1967, Akron, Ohio, Baltimore & Ohio mainline, Akron Union Depot.

And what pops up but an eastbound train about to pass the station, led by GP38 No. 836.

A couple of things are of interest in this image. The second unit is a Reading Lines GP30.

There is also construction work going north of the tracks. Note the concourse of Union Depot is no longer connected on the north side to the bus station.

But there are buses still parked there as a new building is being constructed nearby.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Historic Switcher Donated to Pennsylvania Museum

A California short line has donated a historic locomotive to a Pennsylvania railroad museum.

The EMD SW1200 was last used by the Stockton Terminal & Eastern and is being sent to the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.

The unit was one of five of the same model built for the Reading in 1963.

The museum expects to have the switcher on display later this year.

It is being moved by BNSF and Norfolk Southern.

Railroading as it Once Was: Delaware & Hudson Also Was a Colorful Railroad in the 1970s

While most know of the colorful early years of Conrail, the Delaware & Hudson wasn’t to be ignored either in the years after April 1, 1976.

The government allowed the D&H to expand as “competition” to the new Conrail and some of the newest power the Reading and the Lehigh Valley had was transferred to the D&H to help with their newly expanded territory.

In September 1976 a meet occurred on the Penn Division under the former Erie Starrucca viaduct in Lanesboro, Pennsylvania.

While this beautiful stone viaduct still stands and sees the occasional New York, Susquehanna & Western train, the D&H tracks below are all gone.

Article and Photograph by Roger Durfee

Reading Motive Power Now and Then

I had the morning off Thursday, so I headed to Mansfield in search of the Reading Lines heritage locomotive. Sure enough it was still sitting near Oak Street Yard waiting for the elevator to finish loading the train.

I did a few photos, including the EOT of the 15V passing with some of the old factory buildings in the background.

Now let’s turn the clock back a few years. Little did I realize as I photographed a fading Reading Alco C630 No. 5307 sitting dead at Conrail’s Collinwood shops back in July 1977 that I would see anything other than a stuffed and mounted Reading unit ever again.

The 5307 would be one of the last unpatched Reading units and would be scrapped as you see it here in 1981.

Thanks to the NS Heritage program I would be proven wrong on the “stuffed and mounted” thought. No doubt if the Reading had survived into today’s railroad scene it would have ordered a few of these ACes.

Article and Photographs by Roger Durfee