Here are two from Jan. 31, 2015. In the top image CSX 918 leads a westbound in Clinton. This sunny view is generally unphotographable at any other time of year because of the shadows from the trees and brush when they have leaves on them.
In the bottom image, CSX 385 is on the point of a westbound in Clinton that will soon pass Warwick Park, the site of many Akron Railroad Club picnics over the years.
Photographs by Robert Farkas
Erie Lackawanna F3A No. 8044 and two other units are eastbound in Kent in the late 1960s. The 8044 was built for the Erie Railroad in July 1947. The train is passing through the yard, which was one of the largest on the former Erie in Ohio.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
An eastbound CSX container train passes the former New York Central passenger station in Painesville on Feb. 2, 2014. The depot has been restored and now houses a railroad museum.
Photograph by Craig Sanders
Friday and Saturday were the type of days I will not venture out anymore except to the mailbox and to feed the birds.
Why I didn’t really need to go trackside is because I am more than satisfied with the results I got in Perry in March 2013 in similar conditions. However, things were worse on Friday than they were in March 2013 when there was heavy lake effect snow but not the extreme cold.
Of course I wouldn’t have been able to see Amtrak No. 48 anyway if I had gone out since it was cancelled. Stay warm everyone.
Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas
It is late afternoon on Jan. 10, 2015. I’m standing on the bridge carrying Old State Road over the CSX Willard Terminal Subdivision tracks west of Greenwich.
Cresting a grade and heading toward Willard is CSX manifest freight Q351. I had first spotted this train southeast of New London on the New Castle Subdivision but had been out of position to get a decent photograph. I was able to get ahead of it and catch it here.
The attraction of the train was is bright red and clean Canadian Pacific leader which gleams in the late afternoon sunlight while providing some contrast with the snow and drab colors of the slumbering foliage along the tracks.
The image is a reminder of the rewards of winter photography when low sun angles produce warm light on otherwise cold days.
Article and Photograph by Craig Sanders
An eastbound Baltimore & Ohio merchandise train in Kent has just passed the passenger station behind me. The Erie Lackawanna passenger station is up the hill to the right. It is the late 1960s/early 1970s, so this image is more than 50 years old.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
For a few years in the decade of the 2010s. Ed Ribinskas, Marty Surdyk and myself got together during the winter for a day railfanning in Lake County. Some of those outings occurred on Super Bowl Sunday. It wasn’t planned that way. It just happened.
Perhaps the most memorable of those Super Bowl Sunday outings occurred on Feb. 2, 2014. It had rained the day before and then snowed overnight. The result was some of the most beautiful winter conditions I’ve seen during a railfan photo outing. Nearly everything was coated in snow and it stayed that way throughout the day.
CSX was rather busy on that 2014 Sunday. It was the height of the crude oil by rail boom from the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana. Several of the trains we photographed were tank car trains led by BNSF motive power. Let me tell you pumpkins look good in the snow.
But today I am spotlighting an image made early during our outing. Marty had picked me up at my house and we had just picked up Ed at his house in Painesville. We were on our way to the CSX crossing at Bowhall Road when we crossed the former Painesville, Fairport & Eastern.
This is now a Norfolk Southern branch line to Fairport Harbor to serve a chemical plant and, perhaps, a few other customers.
I probably made this image by rolling down the driver’s side window and getting some grab shots as we crossed the tracks, which are now known as the Fairport Industrial Track. You will note in the image above milepost 3, which is measured from Perry where the ex-FP&E connects with the NS Lake Erie District.
At one time the FP&E extended beyond Perry to Unionville but that track is now gone.
As nice a setting as the ex-FP&E line is at Bowhall Road was, I knew the odds of getting a train here were slim to none because the local out of Conneaut that serves the branch didn’t run on Sunday. So I made a few photographs on the fly and we continued on to a busier rail line.
Last Saturday (Feb. 5) I spent the day in Alliance.
Upon arriving I found an eastbound intermodal sitting on Track No. 1 and another eastbound moving slowly on Track No. 2.
The reason for this soon became apparent as train 14N was sitting on Track 1 blocking every railroad crossing in town. It had broken several air hoses and had gone into emergency.
Also sitting on Track 2 east of town was the 170 waiting to go west. The slowly moving EB train was taking the runner track, a long siding for parking trains, to get around the 170.
After about an hour, the 14N was able to get moving and continue east; However it would need a new crew before reaching Conway.
Once the 14N cleared, the 170 was able to continue west. The 170 takes the Fort Wayne line to Canton and 14N was blocking his move.
The 170 crew was also on short time and ended up tying down at Freshley Road west of town.
Other trains had backed up behind the 14N including 64N an oil or ethanol train.
This train then took the Alliance runner previously used by the intermodal and tied down to wait for a new crew.
A little later train 6K4, another oil or ethanol, took the Cleveland single and tied down on the Mahoning siding south of town.
An empty coal train came an hour or so later, which picked up this crew. The 6K4 had a GP38-3 leading some Canadian National engines, which was interesting.
Another train that I had hoped to get was the 171 which had the Virginian heritage unit. Alas it sat in Canton all afternoon before getting a new crew and going through Alliance about 5 p.m. I had left by then.
Article and Photographs by Todd Dillon
Last Sunday I did a quick chase of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.
After a major snowstorm Thursday and Friday things were pretty much cleared out by Sunday.
CVSR ran a plow train on Friday and with the regular runs of the National Park Scenic on Saturday I did not expect to have any snow buildup at crossings.
Imagine my surprise when the train hit a snow bank at Boston Mills. It was not a very large one but it still made for a nice photo.
The train itself was covered in ice and snow reminding me of Snowpiercer, a dystopian novel in which the earth has been covered in a global freeze and the last survivors ride a train that circles the planet once a year.
This has been adopted into a movie and most recently a TV show. As with most sci-fi works you must suspend disbelief (like who maintains the track for instance?) but otherwise are enjoyable programs.
Anyhow I thought you might enjoy these.
Article and Photographs byTodd Dillon
Most of the images Ed Ribinskas has made of the former Nickel Plate Road trestle over the Grand River in Painesville were made at the east end of the bridge.
He stayed away from the west end for several years to avoid trespassing on the property of Coe Manufacturing. Another factor was that it would be a tight shot because of tree growth that dated back to the end of the steam locomotive era.
After Coe Manufacturing closed and its building were razed, Ed felt more comfortable scouting for photo angles at the west end.
Nonetheless, it was still a tight shot. The best time of year to photograph the west end of the trestle was during the winter.
“Probably the very few times I photographed there resulted in my best and favorites,” Ed wrote.
The bottom two photographs were made of westbound manifest freight 145 at about 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 2, 2014 (Super Bowl Sunday).
With Ed that day were fellow Akron Railroad Club members Marty Surdyk and Craig Sanders.
The top two images were made in early afternoon on May 6, 2018.
Photographs by Edward Ribinskas
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