I have found some old maps of the rail lines and yards in the metro Cleveland area. One map dates map back to 1934 http://www.railsandtrails.com/Maps/Cleveland/CleveMap-100a.jpg
No date on this map and no color http://www.railsandtrails.com/Maps/Cleveland/ClevelandRRMap-100.jpg

How do you start a locomotive with weak batteries? You jump it. Kind of like jump starting your car, but only with a lot more juice. This past Saturday, I got to help and see this happen to a Alco RS3 locomotive. This old lady did put out a lot of smoke at first. Then she started to do a slow chug. With each chug, more smoke would puff out. As the chug became quicker, more smoke came out. Soon, she was running on her own power and the smoke died down some. If you have a chance on November 25, come down and see her running. See the post below for details.

It has been some time since I have updated my blog. During this time, I have been very busy with work and volunteering. Yes volunteering. I joined the Midwest Railway Historical Society (http://www.midwestrailway.org/). It is a small group of folks with a vision to restore an old B&O roundhouse in Cleveland, Ohio. If you happen to be in interested in looking at the equipment, learning about the past, come on out to to the open house on November 25, 2007.

I will post pictures of some of the equipment. The coolest thing that I personally like is GTW 4070. 4070 is an old USRA light Mikado steam locomotive. I hope to be part of the group helps to bring life back to this unit.

I hope to see you at the open house!

Well, there was a big time train derailment in Painesville, Ohio on CSX. No on is sure what caused this derailment. I'm pretty sure that they will get down to the root cause of this one soon.

Here is a link to a thread at Trainorders - http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,1509910

R.J.Corman is at the scene. I have seen these guys in action once. They will have there work this time removing the wrecked cars.

Norfolk Southern runs a coal train that comes from the Powder River Basin. This train starts somewhere on the BNSF. I'm guessing that it changes hands in Chicago. Somewhere a NS unit with cab signals gets added for the Cleveland Line. This line once belonged to the famous Pennsylvania Railroad. Some trains make there run over the Cleveland Line at track speed while others crawl. Amtrak's Capitol Limited glides along this line at a pretty good clip. There is a coal train that heads west that receives helpers on the rear end. I'm not sure where this train starts at.

Here is a picture of the coal train mentioned above. A trio of EMD SD70 series units (NS SD70M and BNSF SD70MAC) working hard to pull PRB coal upgrade near downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

I have posted questions about the GP39 at the following links:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,1498636
http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20158