Westbound
July 30-31, 2013

by Dave Ingles

To begin our 2-day drive back to Chicago on Tuesday morning, July 30, we took our time getting going in the morning, leaving our Monroeville motel about 10 a.m. We were reserved that night at a La Quinta south of Toledo off I-75 in suburban Perrysburg, and intended to drive "express" to beyond Cleveland, then follow the NS Chicago Line main line  (ex-NYC/PC/CR) for action. Some time Monday, Rick came up with an alternate first stop, which proved to be very enlightening for me: photograph the 3 extant downtown passenger stations in Youngstown, Ohio, handy to our Turnpike route via I-680 loop. I had not been in downtown Youngstown by car (i.e., other than thru it on the train) since the 1962 visit chronicled in Fall 2009 CLASSIC TRAINS as "Storming the Steel City," an auto trip to photo all the area's industrial short lines. On that visit to Youngstown, en route to Pittsburgh, the only building we photographed was the old NYC-P&LE station; it was a Sunday, and the one remaining Youngstown-Pittsburgh P&LE commuter train (there was another, which began at College, Pa.) was parked by it for the weekend. That depot is the only one of the city's four that is gone.

The Youngstown depots we shot are below: B&O, PRR, and Erie. B&O's was first; its size was surprising to me, as I'd seen only the top level, trackside, from Amtrak's Broadway Ltd. and Three Rivers. It still serves as a banquet hall, and perhaps an everyday restaurant, we didn't look inside. The time here was 11:30.

Next was PRR's, across a river nearby. It is vacant now, had housed a fireworks firm, but seems in reasonably good shape. To get the true scope of this building, though, you need to see the vertical photo in the Fall 2003 CLASSIC TRAINS article, "The Pittsburgh Train," by the late Bill Gwyer, which covers all four roads' Cleveland-Pittsburgh services after WWII (PRR, NYC, P&LE, and Erie). That photo, from the extensive Kalbmach library photo files, was one of several "Godsends" I found in trying to illustrate Bill's article. The PRR Keystone from the high point of the building is gone, alas. This view looks west.

Several blocks to the east, at the north edge of a surprisingly vibrant downtown (for a city that is among the worst-hit in the Rust Belt), was the Erie's, now the office building "Erie Terminal Place." This was Erie's division headquarters foremost and passenger station second. The former track area north of the building is now parking lots. Erie through freights bypassed Youngstown on a freight-only line that split, eastbound, at Warren, Ohio, and rejoined the passenger line northeast of Youngstown in western Pa. I have "real" Erie trackage (after the EL merger) from Chicago to Akron, and in the PV-rare-mileage-trips era from Hoboken west all the way to the end of the former Erie main near Sharon, Pa., but lack both routes through, and bypassing, Youngstown, and never did go out to ride the last surviving (west of New Jersey, etc.) EL commuter train in the 70's from Youngstown to Cleveland. The photo below looks west to the north side of the building over the former track area.

Back on the Turnpike after leaving Youngstown and I-680, we exited beyond Cleveland for lunch at an exit to Lorain & Elyria, had lunch at a Denny's, and then drove to Vermilion, where NS's former Nickel Plate main between Bellevue and Cleveland goes under its Chicago Line (ex-NYC Water Level Route), which I wanted to inspect from the ground. Pete Stonitsch and his "BARF" (Brotherhood of American Railfans) buddies had hung out here at one of their annual or twice-a-year gatherings, on a cloudy day, and I wanted to see for myself. The NYC has a grade crossing just west of the over-under, and the street goes over the old NKP. The bridge itself is not very shootable, with wires in the way. We gave it "the 10-minute rule" (maybe 15, can't remember) and soon were treated to not one but two RoadRailers, one in each direction, within 3 minutes of each other, at 236 pm w.b. and 239 e.b.

The meet occurred in "downtown" Vermilion where there are other NYC grade crossings. I didn't count the vans -- high speed, and VERY LONG trains! No. 261, the westbound, had units 9155/9310, while the eastbound, whose number we didn't hear, had the 8321/9033.

Pressing on from Vermilion, we kept our ears to the scanner but nothing else materialized as we moseyed west. Our next (short) stop was at Huron, which will be the next CLASSIC TRAINS "Birds-Eye View" aerial photo of the old W&LE-NKP ore-dock area, which is pretty much all cleared out now, tho a few boats do call and a couple of tracks on the branch up from Norwalk still exist. We just had to check out "Nickel Plate Beach" to the east, but it costs to enter and park so we just took a photo.

We moseyed on west, using Ohio 2, bypassing Sandusky (except for a Steak n Shake diet cherry Coke to-go at an exit) but catching a telephoto sequence at 3:50 pm across Sandusky Bay of an eastbound NS intermodal behind 3 units, close to where I had shot NYC freights and a passenger train in the 60s. En route, we also saw 2 or 3 other NS trains that we couldn't shoot, and one I could only grab a slide of across the fields, with the telephoto lens.

I wanted to check out Oak Harbor, where NS, after acquiring its share of Conrail, built a connection from the old W&LE  out of Bellevue (toward Toledo) to the Chicago Line. (NS installed a similar connection west of Vermilion for westbound Chicago Line trains to access the old NKP west to Bellevue; we didn't go check that one out, but Google Earth tells us there is a north-south country road just west of it.) At Oak Harbor, MP 266 (from Buffalo), we relaxed by the depot for a half hour during an NS lull waiting for something, as it is at the apex of a curve, east of the W&LE overhead. From our parking spot in the shade of the depot, we could see for miles in each direction down long tangents. Finally, at 510 pm, we nailed w.b. train 288, all trilevel auto racks, behind UP 7918/NS 2648.

We knew another w.b. was behind him, and went on west, checking out crossings, winding up shooting him at MP 270, east of Grayson, at 5:28. a short 30-car merchandise train 11K behind NS 9210/9177/9250, the last unit in an Operation Lifesaver livery. Seven miles later a very backlit eastbound oil train, 54K behind 1 NS and 2 UP units, surprised us, and we couldn't shoot it. We went on to Perrysburg and tied up at our motel, dining at the Frisch's Big Boy across I-75. (Frisch's is unique in the chain, using tartar source on its Big Boy, a fave of mine, instead of Thousand Island dressing; I remember that from the 1960s in Cincinnati, and that is still the case!)

Wednesday, the last day of July and also the last day of our driving trip to Pittsburgh, found Rick Moser and I setting out from Perrysburg in suburban Toledo a little after 8 a.m. Our game plan was to follow the NS Chicago Line (aka NYC Water Level Route) to central Indiana and then jump on the 4-lanes to express it to Chicago so we were into Illinois around 3 p.m. EDT (2 p.m. CDT). We allowed for some slop time to wait for, and/or shoot, trains, plus lunch, and it worked out almost as if we were checking our "planned schedule" (i.e., the 8 a.m. departure), which we were not. We took the Ohio Turnpike from I-75 at Perrysburg past Toledo to Ohio Route 2 again, then followed it and back roads as we zig-zagged along the long railroad tangent (3rd longest in the U.S., Brian Schmidt reminded me), then onto U.S. 6 around Bryan, and west to Ligonier, Ind., then up U.S. 33 to Goshen for lunch, after which it was express via U.S. 20 and the Indiana Toll Road to the Chicago area. At our first town west of Toledo, Swanton, we heard an apparent NS eastbound trip a detector just east of us; we did not see it. After photographing a displayed caboose in a trackside park, at 8:45, and mailing my postcards there, we headed on west, and wound up getting 5 trains, all courtesy of NS's people: the crews who unfailingly call signals as the approach; MofW forces who had Track 2 tied up; and the dispatcher (this one was very informative). Note in the Swanton caboose photo below that it is an ex-PRR car, keeping to the theme of "off line" (in "Golden Days" era RR's) cabooses displayed: C&O not B&O in Garrett; pure N&W not NKP in Lodi; and Wabash in California, Pa.) At least Willard had a B&O caboose! You take what you can get, i suppose.

We paused in Wauseon at 9:20 to shoot the old Lake Shore depot and a caboose lettered "LS&MS." According to my guidebook, "Captive Cabeese in America," the car is ex-B&O C479, so it's another "off-line" caboose display!

Since the roads leave the railroad around Bryan, and our first two eastbounds were approaching, we hung around Stryker (which has a nice preserved depot) for 45 minutes in order to not miss either. Note how far back these Lake Shore depots are set from the tracks (both Wauseon and Stryker). Rick found the edge of the old platform at Stryker, pretty far out from the building. Of course, "back in the day" there were 4 tracks here, and we surmise that depot placement must have taken into account the high train speeds. A nice historical plaque is in front of the depot, which apparently is the Chamber of Commerce; an employee was mowing the lawn as we waited!

We wound up 5-for-5 with no misses, but thanks to a couple of lucky breaks on side roads and to the DeLorme Atlas. Our eastbounds and their photos follow. 

The first eastbound came thru Stryker on track 1 at 10:13 a.m., merchandiser 16N with the same trio of units we shot east of Toledo the "prevening" (to quote "Big Bang Theory's" Sheldon Cooper) before: 9250-9177-9210, which must have flipped back at Elkhart.

Next, a surprising 18 minutes later, was intermodal ("mail train" to the d.s.) 24M, behind 9410-9913, which was on track 2, apparently clear of the track gangs and to overtake the 16N, so we shot from the opposite side, as the sun was not out.

As we worked our way west, we heard a third eastbound approaching, but found a couple of crossings to be crowded with M/W trucks for the gang who had Track 2 out of service east of Bryan. We were north of the tracks and dashed into Melbern and onto a side street with perfect timing to nail an eastbound unit coil steel train on track 1 behind BNSF 4082/NS 9446, at 11 a.m.

We then headed south to U.S. 6 and bypassed Bryan, knowing nothing else was close (and no westbounds, obviously) and not needing to shoot anything in town. We got almost to the Indiana line when we encountered our fourth eastbound: merchandiser 20E at MP354 west of Edgerton, the last town in Ohio, at 11:15 a.m. behind NS 9453-6510-8782. The 6510 is ex-UP, obviously from the paint, one of a number of secondhand SD60s NS has acquired from the leaser(s)--news to me--which Greg McDonnell tells me is ex-C&NW 8001! The coming-on photo is Rick Moser's, as mine -- shot after a couple of telephoto slides -- had the signal bungalow barely cut off the lead unit's handrail. The going-away shots are mine.

We entered Indiana about 11:20 and saw or  heard nothing evident on either the ex-Wabash or the Chicago Line around Butler, where they cross, so we pressed on. The sky was darkening. Nearing Waterloo, we heard of another approaching eastbound, but had to go more than a mile for the first side road, gravel, to get down to the tracks at the east edge of town, and were just in time to nail merchandiser 16E at 11:38 a.m. behind NS 6953-9034-CP 8871. We don't know if he was NS bound for Toledo or NS or CP that would take the connection at Butler, but it was the last of our eastbound trains, making us 5-for-5, very satisfying given we'd blown almost an hour at Stryker and had to keep making time west.

As we passed Kendallville, we heard, but did not see, B43 apparently switching in town, possibly interchanging with  the Kendallville Terminal. Around Ligonier, where NS veers away from U.S. 6 and heads northwest, the weather, which had been alternately kind of a high fog, partly cloudy, with a bit of sun now and then, turned to a light drizzle as we left the proximity of the Chicago Line. The rain quit as we got into Goshen, where we had lunch at the Steak n Shake northwest of town on 33. We requested a table by the window facing the highway and the railroad beyond it, and during lunch a westbound caught up to and passed us, and I shot this photo through the window from our table: a w.b. CP train from Detroit that had come onto NS at Butler, behind engines CP 9640/9736, at 1:10 p.m. It was my last photo of the trip.

We got on the road about 1:30 EDT and though we encountered some rain, other than a very slight detour to the on-ramp to the Toll Road west of South Bend, had no other delays on it, on the busy I-80/90 into Illinois, or on I-80 out to I-355, thence north to Maple Avenue and west to Rick's home in Naperville, arriving at 3 pm CDT. I transloaded my "stuff" into my van and had really no delays north on the Tri-State Tollway. I made a leg-stretch (and Kringle purchase) stop at Hwy. 20 in Racine County and was home by 5:15 pm to conclude a fruitful trip. I hope you enjoyed the photos, and my thanks to "webmaster" Mike Condren for the posting.-- J.D.I.

This page was designed and is maintained by Mike Condren. If you have materials
that you would like to contribute, contact me at mcondren@cbu.edu