Ohio Railfanning - 1

Hi, Friend Dale Diacont and I embarked on a six day trip on August 16 for five days of railfanning and a visit to Detroit to take in the Woodward Dream Cruise. I'll cover the Dream Cruise in a post following the railfanning.

Our first stop was at the Wheeling and Lake Erie's Rook Yard in Greentree, PA where we found one of the Wheeling's two red and yellow units.  Unfortunately, although we attempted to follow the Wheeling west from here into Ohio we were not able to photograph another train on this day.

We began our second day by visiting the Ashtabula Carson & Jefferson.

While the railroad did not work that day, their Alco S-2 was sitting in an easily accessible spot (above and two below).  When we arrived we immediately encountered the railroad's Chief Mechanical Officer and enjoyed talking with him while taking our photos.

From the AC&J we headed for the Grand River Railroad.  It has two EMD switchers recently painted into a version of B&O blue and gray. Unfortunately the railroad was not working and the power was sitting inside the fence of a Morton Salt plant.

After lunch we set up at Greenwich, OH (above and seven below).  In days of yore New York Central's Big Four route from Cleveland to St. Louis crossed the B&O mainline between Chicago and the east coast here.  As a result of the Conrail split CSX obtained the old NYC route from northern New Jersey north to Selkirk Yard, across New York State to Buffalo and on to Cleveland.  On the east side of Cleveland CSX used the belt line around the city to reach the former Big Four; which it also obtained as part of the split.  Two connections were built in the northwest quadrant of the crossing (the long connector and the short connector) and one in the southeast quadrant (the southeast connector).  The long and short connectors allowed trains to run between Chicago and Cleveland, Buffalo, Selkirk and northern New Jersey.  The southeast connector allows trains to run between eastern points on the former B&O and St. Louis.  All of the trains pictured below, with the exception of number three are westbound.

Track one and the short connector were out of service for most of the afternoon as welders were working on the switch connecting them.

Thanks for looking.