In the fall of 2020 I was jazzed to go on a second trip to the Front Royal, VA area for a brewery tour and to get more N&W signal photos on the NS H-Line. Unfortunately when I took the trip I didn't encounter many trains and those I did encounter I wasn't in a position to photograph well. Therefore I am going to pivot to the B Plot where I briefly stopped by SEPTA's Highland Ave station south of Chester on the R2 Wilmington. Also animals. Photos can be found here ( mirror ).
Highland Ave is one of the least used stations on SEPTA's Regional Rail system and currently consists of wooden one car low level platforms on either side of Amtrak's 4-track NEC. It is under constant threat of being shut down as happened to the Lamokin Street Station about a mile to the north in 2003.
Amtrak was still running a COVID schedule so I only managed to catch a
single Regional in each direction. The southbound was led by ACS-86
#650.
Highland Ave used to be adjacent to the milepost 15.6 automatic signal
location that broke up the longer than normal signal block between the
old LAMOKIN interlocking to the north and the still existing HOOK
interlocking to the south. At some point after 1992 this signal was
deemed unnecessary as it is possible to clearly see HOOKs southbound
signal in the distance and it became a cab signal change point for HOOK.
Popping back over to South Jersey I managed to catch sibling NJT GP40PH-2's #4105 and #4106 on MoW duty at the Cherry Hill Atlantic City Line station. These engines were part of a batch of 13 built for the Central Railroad of New Jersey in 1968 to augment its aging fleet of GP7 based passenger diesels.
The City of Cleveland was not just parked randomly on the shore of Lake Erie, it was built around the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, which provided port infrastructure that later allowed the city to become an industrial hub where iron ore delivered via boat could be combined with coal delivered via rail to create steel. Later the river port became useful in international trade with other industrial concerns able to send and receive their goods via the St. Lawrence Seaway. Although the river is best known for catching fire several times in the mid-20th century due to extreme amounts of pollution, the more lasting legacy are the large number of drawbridges that span the river as it winds its way through the historic Flats part of the city to the large industrial zone several miles inland.
In the fall of 2020 I went on a little walk from the east side of DRAWBRIDGE interlocking, located at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, to the west side. DRAWBRIDGE interlocking and its associated Bridge One srawbridge are located on the former Conrail Chicago Line and is today owned by Norfolk Southern as part of its New York - Chicago corridor. Also included in this set are photos from Berea, OH, about 20 miles west of Bridge One and a major train watching hotspot where NS and CSX lines briefly meet. The full set of both Drawbridge and Berea photos can be found here ( mirror ).
The New York Central's BE tower, later renamed BEREA under Conrail, still stands in Berea, Ohio although the interlocking it once controlled has been split between Norfolk Southern and CSX. The late model Central tower was built at the western junction of the Water Level Route main line and the Cleveland Short Line with a 144 level GRS Model 5 pistol grip type interlocking machine. Closed at the very tail end of the Conrail era in 1997, the interlocking itself remained unchanged for another decade despite the fact that the two lines it controlled had been sold to competing railroads. Not surprisingly, the entire complex was rebuilt split between the two railroads, but BEREA tower itself has remained standing as an NS crew facility.
When I arrived at BEREA early on a Saturday morning a a spike of local railfans
were already on site with lawn chairs due to the impending arrival of a
Canadian Pacific heritage unit as run-through power on a CSX intermodal
train. While waiting quite a few NS trains passed by on the Chicago
Line, the first of these being an eastbound stack train led by NS
AC44C6M's #4214 and #4168.
Berea Union Depot
has been since transformed into a railroad theme restaurant, likely
knowing the tastes of the majority users of the Station's parking
facility. The need for a Union station here predates the Central's
takeover of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and Big Four railroads.
A westbound TOFC train featured NS ES44AC #8067 and #4380, one of the latest AC44C6M conversions.
The next train, and eastbound NS manifest job, featured a bevy of power
including two AC44C6M's, #4163 and #4241, C40-10W #7606, SD70ACe #1177
and two SD40-2's #3229 and #3301. Note the signal masts in the
foreground located on the former Short Line to Chicago Line connecting
track where the ownership changes between NS and CSX.
The Canadian Pacific SD70ACU #7018 heritage unit eventually arrived with
a second CP unit, ES44AC #8867, on the rear of the eastbound
doublestack train.
DRAWBRIDGE tower is another former New York Central structure built in
the 1960's to manage Bridge One and the surrounding trackage. Under
Conrail DRAWBRIDGE came to control the critical junction between the Chicago and Cleveland Lines
that linked both of Conrails main routes between the East Coast and
Chicago. After the Conrail split, Chicago Line through traffic was
shifted to the Cleveland Short Line under CSX, but the operator at
DRAWBRIDGE was still on hand to orchestrate movements of boats and
freight trains as Bridge One's deck sits only a few feet above the water
level. DRAWBRIDGE was closed as an interlocking tower around 2018 and
for a time the work of raising and lowering the bridge was done
remotely as well, however this caused massive delays to marine traffic
and NS ultimately put bridge operation back on site.
If you don't know what Larry's Truck and Electric company of McDonald, Ohio is, you have certainly seen the photos of derelict locomotives stretching as far as the eye can see. Better known by its LTEX reporting mark, Larry set up shop on the grounds of an old US Steel mill and started purchasing just about every cast off locomotive under the sun to become a major player in the locomotive leasing and parts market. In the fall of 2020 I used the opportunity of an unrelated trip to Cleveland to pay my first visit to the famous Larry's Truck Electric facility followed by an additional stop at CP-RAVE in Ravenna, Ohio to document the former Conrail signals at the interlocking there as well as the NS freight traffic on the line. You can see the complete set of photos here ( mirror ).
Larry's Tuck is best known for images like these of his massive storage yard. The crazier part is that there is an equally large separate stash of engines on the western end of the facility.
Some of the standout engines visible from the bridge include this pair
of ex-US Navy GE 44-ton switchers along with Raritan Center Railway
B23-7 #3110 that used to operate in North Jersey.
On the other side of the bridge was former Amtrak F40PH #344 that still looks to be in pretty good condition.
The whole place reminds me of the aircraft boneyard at Davis Montan Air
Force Base where all sorts of historic oddities are just littered about
like these END SW series switchers with trees growing out of them.
Of course not everything Larry owns
is up on blocks and a number of MP15DC's including #1563 and #1551 were
hanging out in fresh paint with brand new engine modifications.
SW1500 #1532 in B&LE colors was parked out a bit further away.
Moving on to CP-RAVE, once a side operation off the PRR Main Line to
Chicago via Fort Wayne, the Cleveland Line had seen a massive increase
in traffic starting in the 1980's as traffic patterns changed under
Conrail to send "PRR" freights via the former NY Central's Lake Shore
and Michigan Southern route by way of Cleveland. Despite this new
traffic, by the time of the Conrail split in 1999 the line still
retained its PRR era single direction ABS Rule 251 signal configuration
with limited crossovers. A late term closure of RAVE tower in 1995 resulted in a fairly modern interlocking with Conrail style target signals replacing it.
When Conrail moved forward on the second phase of its Pittsburgh to
Cleveland cab signal project in the 1998 time frame, there was no reason
to re-replace such a new interlocking and when the project was
completed under Conrail successor Norfolk Southern, 'C' lamps were
simply bolted to the existing color light masts to support the Rule 280a
Clear to Next Interlocking indication that were part of Conrail's
process of eliminating wayside intermediate signals in favor of cab
signals.
I didn't have to wait long for a train to show up in the form of an
eastbound manifest freight with NS C40-10W #7658 and C44-9W #9184
leading and AC44C6M #4271 with C44-9W #9184 helping mid-train.
