This photo should bring back a lot of pleasant memories for many of you. Shown is Ohio Central passenger car 3659 in Sugarcreek in September 1996. It was the era when steam locomotives pulled the Sugarcreek-Baltic tourist trains. Or maybe your memories are from riding this car or something similar during an Akron Railroad Club steam excursion. Those were great times, but they eventually ended.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
It is Sept. 27, 1997, in Sugarcreek, Ohio. It’s a sunny and pleasant fall day and two Ohio Central steam locomotives are in town and operating. No. 1551 is handling the Baltic tourist train while No. 1293 brought into town a special sponsored by the Orrville Railroad Historical Society.
I was aboard the latter train and during the layout I walked around and made several photographs. There also was an Ohio Central freight train working in town at one point.
In the top image a crew member stands an the rear platform of GP10 No. 7561, which still wears Conrail colors. In the bottom image, the 7561 is coupled to Alco RS3 No. 1077.
Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders
It is Sept. 5, 2012, in Sugarcreek. I had been informed that the Age of Steam Roundhouse would be sending one of its locomotives to the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad for Steam in the Valley 2012.
I had hoped to get there soon enough to catch the locomotive on the turntable at the roundhouse, but I was too late. Still, what a beautiful sight the roundhouse is.
There was smoke rising behind the roundhouse. How impressive and almost timeless the facility is.
Central Ohio 1293 (formerly Canadian Pacific 1293/Ohio Central 1293) is on its way north. What a true gem that locomotive is.
Article and Photographs by Robert Farkas
It is autumn 1999 and steam locomotive smoke still fills the air on the Ohio Central between Sugarcreek and Baltic. The former Canadian Pacific 4-6-2 is shown after just having crossed Ohio Route 93 south of Sugarcreek and chugging southbound near Baltic in a pastoral setting that is always a pleasure to view.
Photographs by Robert Farkas
Here are two photos of Youngstown & Austintown GP7 No. 1501, formerly a Pittsburgh & Lake Erie unit, on the Ohio Central in July 1998. The top image shows the 1501 sitting in Sugarcreek,. The bottom image was made of it pulling a southbound train approaching Baltic.
Photographs by Robert Farkas
Ohio Central 4-6-2 No. 1293 is shown on Sept. 6, 2012, on the OC heading north for Steam in the Valley on the Cuyahoga Scenic Railroad. In the top image, the train is leaving Sugarcreek. The photographer did not remember where he made the bottom image. Built by Canadian Locomotive Works in 1948, the former Canadian Pacific locomotive is younger than the photographer.
Photographs by Robert Farkas
The Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum in Sugarcreek will offer an expanded tour on April 30 that will enable participants to help with the preparation and firing of a steam locomotive.
The Blue Flag tour will be led by Chief Mechanical Officer Tim Sposato and feature a tour of the roundhouse and collection as well as firing Morehead & North Fork 0-6-0 No. 12.
Tickets are $175 and can be ordered at https://www.showclix.com/event/blue-flag-pass-tour45d8yqzdzzzp4bFE43uLx/listing
The tour will be limited to 25 participants. The ticket price includes a box lunch at the Roundhouse Depot and a special gift. Participants must be at least 18 years of age.
Numerous COVID-19 pandemic procedures will be observed and are detailed at the museum’s website.
Tickets are now being sold for public tours of the Age of Steam Roundhouse and Museum in Sugarcreek.
Tours are offered on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays in May through October.
Prices are $20 for adults, $17 for seniors and veterans, and $12 for children (ages 3 to 16). There is no admission charge for children under age 3 or for active duty military members who present an identification card.
All tickets must be purchased in advance and can be ordered from the museum’s website https://www.ageofsteamroundhouse.org/events/
No walk up visitors will be allowed and the tour group sizes will be limited to 10 people.
Tour participants should wait in their vehicles or the parking lot until 10 minutes before their tour time.
Visitors and staff must adhere to social distancing requirements as determined by the State of Ohio with visitors encouraged to adhere to all state-mandated requirements, including the wearing of facial masks.
Public areas such as the gift shop and restrooms will be cleaned and disinfected multiple times a day. A deep clean is performed once a week by an outside, professional cleaning service.
We wish we had more information about this train. The only information the photographer sent about it is that it it is a southbound at Sugarcreek, Ohio, on Oct. 6, 1984.
The motive power is a pair of Norfolk Southern geeps and there are at least four former Amtrak passenger cars in the consist.
If you know anything about this trail feel free to leave a comment.
At first glance, these two photographs appear to have little in common.
The top photograph depicts former Lake Superior & Ishpeming 2-8-0 No. 33 at Sugarcreek on April 19, 2008, during one of its few outings under Ohio Central ownership.
In the bottom photograph is Oil Creek & Titusville Alco S2 No. 85 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, on April 20, 2006.
Both images feature good composition that invites you to linger over them for a moment or two.
But what these have in common are little things that maybe you noticed but might not have stopped to think about the role they play in creating a story.
In the photograph of No. 33 there is a figure standing next to the locomotive looking it over.
He appears to be a crew member and is wearing a broad brim hat. No. 33 is a smallish steam locomotive, but even if dwarfs a person standing next to it.
In the OC&T image, there is a portion of a pole line visible along the tracks. That combined with the large and old red brick industrial building in the background suggest another era.
The boarded up windows of the industrial building indicate that era is well past.
It used to be common to see pole lines along railroad right of ways, but in the past decade or so railroads have pretty much removed them as they rely on other technology to communicate.
Of course nothing says “another era” like a steam locomotive. And Alco has been out of the business of building diesel locomotives since 1969.
There is another link between these two images as well. Both locomotives were used in tourist train service and part of the rational for having tourist trains is to provide a glimpse of the past.
Railroading hasn’t gone away and figures to be around for a long time to come. But in many ways subtle and obvious it is always changing. Hence it’s nice to have reminders of the past, including those things we may have forgotten from it.
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