I am #1

Sometime in January 2002, I was at Collinwood Yard taking pictures. I was lucky enough to catch CSX AC44 unit #1 coming into the yard. I was able to pull off the photo below with some luck. This pan shot was taken with an old Canon Powershot 2mp model. If you know anything about the old Canon digitals, you know how hard it was to get a picture of something if it was moving. You would press the button and hope that it would take a picture in the same life time. Lucky for me that this train was moving slow, a steady hand and a lucky aim.

You can click on this picture for a bigger view. This also applies to most pictures posted.

Shortline Tour, Part 1

I work for a short line railroad that runs from Glenn Willow, Ohio to Cleveland, Ohio. Our little line hauls scrap metal from a huge junk yard in Cleveland destined for steel mills near the Ohio~Pennsylvania boarder area. Once and awhile, we receive a coiled wire type of steel that is used to make rebar. This steel arrives in very nice cars from the CN railroad for a customer along our line. We interchange with the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway (WE) at Falls Junction Yard. The WE brings us empty gondolas and sometimes coiled steel for delivery. In return, we bring them loads of scrap metal. We have a very basic and simple operation that only requires us usually to run once a day during the week. If we have more than 19-20 loads, we will usually make 2 trips to avoid stalling on our little hill.

I've decided to start posting about and sharing photos of our line to give folks a better idea of my stories. This is picture was taken in the same area of my famous bunny story.


Here is a picture taken from the Havard Road bridge near East 103 Street. Currently the crew is sorting out cars using the passing track and house track in the 93rd Street Yard..

The Obama Express Locomotive Engineer

Who knew it was this easy to get selected to run this historic train. I know guys who fight over who gets to blow the whistle. I know one engineer that has a need for speed. Let's call him Casey for this example. No matter how many secret service agents that would have been in the cab with Casey, he would have them sitting down and holding on to something bolted down.

Here is a link to Carlyle Smith's story.

Out of Conrail GP40-2 Locomotives Pictures

As promised, the pictures I've taken of the ex-Conrail GP40-2 units.

This is the picture from which I named my last post, "Walking Away". Now you can see why.


4420 was often mated with 4410 or 4411. Here they are in the middle of the night with there rear class lights on. The front class lights were blanked out as you can see in the next picture.




4433 was one the the first Conrail units I found painted in the new scheme.




Not the famous SP 4449, but CSXT 4449.

Walking Away.....

There is a power plant in Eastlake, Ohio that receives Power River Basin coal trains from the BNSF Railway. At one time, there was always a pair of EMD GP40-2 locomotives to pull the coal cars down to the car plant for dumping. These units where kept on a siding next to a small trailer that was used a depot for the crews. The units where usually ex-Conrail units that went to CSX. The usual units that got to handle the coal traind where 4407, 4410, 4411, 4420, 4447, 4449 and others in series.. These units were once used to tow hot TV (Trailer Van) trains across the Conrail system. Soon, they where bumped to handle general freights due to displacement by newer power to handle that could handle longer trains. By the time CSX recieved these units, there where being used in local and yard service. When not being used to shuffle auto racks and pull long cuts of flat cars in Collinwood, you could find them working on the coal cars for the power plant.

Over the years, I been able to catch the bandits mentioned above around Cleveland.

I'll post the pictures tomorrow.......