
It’s the early Conrail era and we find former Reading Lines SD45 No. 7600 in Akron on Aug.1, 1976. The 7600 is hooked up to a second EMD SD45, Erie Lackawanna No. 3609.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
The Wisconsin Central is only a memory now having been acquired by Canadian National in 2001. WC locomotives were not common visitors to Northeast Ohio, thus it was a surprise to find this SD45 trailing a CSX unit on a westbound in Kent on Aug. 5, 2005. The 7512 was built for Burlington Northern in July 1971.
Photograph by Craig Sanders
Norfolk & Western SD45 No. 1804 leads train DJ-12 eastbound in Orrville on July 25, 1984. The originated at Oakwood Yard in Detroit and was bound for the Chessie System at Connellsville, Pennsylvania.
Note the open auto rack car second in the consist behind the motive power. Such a practice was common once but would not be done today.
The train is operating on the original Wheeling & Lake Erie, which has since reverted back to the modern version of the W&LE.
It’s Tuesday and time to present a pair of images from the same railroad.
In the top image, we see Conrail SD60M leading an eastbound manifest freight on the Fort Wayne Line in Orrville on May 25, 1996.
The bridge it is passing beneath carries the Wheeling & Lake Erie.
The photographer wrote about the image, “while Conrail tolerated my entering their little-used yard in Orrville, Norfolk Southern would not allow this today.”
In the bottom image, Conrail SD45 No. 6130 is shown in Akron in June 1979 during the railroad’s relatively short life in the rubber city.
Today’s Erie Lackawanna Monday is a twofer and it is not because there are two photographs shown above. Nor is it because both images were made in Akron.
No, this is a twofer day because each image has two of the same thing.
In the top image, we see two nearly new EL SD45 units, Nos. 3625 and 3624 leading a train east in mid 1968 where Wilbeth Road used to cross the railroad tracks in Akron.
This must be a time-sensitive train given the first two cars appear to be reefers and the visible trailing cars are trailers on flat cars.
In the bottom image EL 04949 and C176 are on the rear of an westbound freight in downtown Akron in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
We can only imagine how many countless railroad photographs made in Akron have featured the twin spires of St. Bernard’s Church on University Avenue.
In advance of being absorbed by Conrail, the Erie Lackawanna did some “tidy up” work.
The Delaware & Hudson had acquired three EMD SD45s once their demonstration chores were done.
They were basically big orphans in a sea of Alco and GE motive power, so the D&H and EL worked out a one-for-one swap of the three SDs to the EL for three GE U33Cs to the D&H.
This was all fine and good until Conrail was acquiring the EL, but not the D&H; so the whole deal was undone a couple months before C-Day.
The U-boats returned to the EL and the D&H got its SDs back and quickly put them to work with a quickie re-lettering job.
I consider it a stroke of good luck to have ran across all three of them together at Binghamton, New York, in September 1976 in the sun no less, their travels having come full circle.
After a few years on the D&H these locomotives were shipped off to Mexico.