Late September 1960. The nip of Fall is in the air in Northern Ohio. The Browns have begun their quest for another championship. The Indians have faded from the pennant race, as usual. Full harvest season will soon be upon us. The trees have just begun to turn. What a perfect time to capture the rapidly changing rail scene in the Buckeye state.
Bob Lucas, Tom Davidson and I have ventured West from Bob’s home in Akron to capture on film his favorite road, the Akron Canton & Youngstown. We made it as far west as New London, OH looking for some AC&Y action. Lots of Big Four freights were rolling through town but the AC&Y was quiet.
During the trip west we caught a clean early model H16-44 at Spencer. Nice, but we’d heard the “new” engines, late model H16-44s with the thick frames like the Trainmasters had, were working the west end and that was what we were after.
Backtracking through Spencer we were quite surprised to see a train in town – An eastbound that must have passed us on our trip west during the brief time we were out of sight of the railroad. We could hear the FM OP engines chanting away in the distance so I raced to the Wheeling crossing at OH 261 in time to – you guessed it – watch the engines roll by at a distance and on the other side of a cut of cars. Such luck.
They were moving light on the Wheeling transfer track. Odd I thought. Bob figured there were cars on the passing track and they were headed to the east end of the siding to work the head end to prepare Litchfield or Medina set outs. Bob said we should wait here, they would be back. I don’t know how he knew, but Bob knew the AC&Y. So we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“Patience is a virtue young man” said Sister Joan Marie, one of my high school teachers. The good Sister must have been a railfan. Nah, probably a Cleveland Indians fan.
At last we heard the FMs drawing near, the chunga-chunga-chunga getting louder by the second. Bob was right. What a sight, with the bright yellow engines adding an accent to the early autumn afternoon.
Bob suggested we move east and split up to capture the train’s departure from various locations. Sounded like a good plan to me. He let me off at the Spencer Mills Road underpass. He went further east to capture the train crossing the East Branch of the Black River. Tom did not have a camera so he went with Bob. They’d have to leave the car at the side of the road and hike down to the river bank. Presumably it was Tom’s job to watch for snakes. What should be done if he saw one was left unsaid.
As the train approached the underpass it dawned on me that the tree cover was going to make getting a full view of the lead loco a challenge. I did the best I could. It was still a thrill to hear the 207 and 208 take advantage of the last bit of downgrade before starting the charge up the hill on the other side of the river valley. I headed east to catch up with Bob and Tom.
Bob and Tom did a bit better, catching both engines on the bridge in pretty decent light for early afternoon.
He stuck around to catch the tail end and was treated to a nice shot of a new tank car and a freshly painted caboose, recently purchased from the New Haven.
I caught up with them just as they emerged from the weeds. Fortunately no snakes were encountered. That was their story anyway. It appeared there was no business on the head end for Litchfield so Bob suggested we high tail it to Medina to catch the switching action there. What a great day so far, and the fun was just beginning.
