Vermilion Railfans

While the sites and sounds of the railroad have long faded in many towns and cities, Vermilion's train traffic continues. Vermilion Ohio is a railfan paradise.

The railroad action in Vermilion is virtually non-stop, and no other railroad town offers a more beautiful location in a picturesque town on the shores of Lake Erie.  Local shopkeepers welcome railfans in the historic downtown, while a variety of exceptional dining choices are all within walking distance to some of Vermilion's best railfan viewing areas.  A public comfort station, located in beautiful Exchange Park, is conveniently located downtown.  Three additional historic train depots provide a wealth of photo opportunities.  Bed and breakfasts and cottages are within walking distance to Vermilion's Mainline viewing areas and several campgrounds are nearby.  The public library and several area businesses offer free internet access.

Best Railfan Viewing Locations

DOWNTOWN VERMILION: It doesn't get any better for rail buffs than Vermilion's historic downtown, with at least 5 trains racing through town every hour.  A rail-viewing platform sits in the city's historic "Harbour Town" district in downtown Vermilion at Victory Park.  The platform feaures a deck, benches, a railfan information station and radio. Shops, restaurants and a wealth of historic architecture are all close by. Both NS (ex-CR, exx-PC, exxx-NYC) and NS (ex-N&W, exx-NKP) run parallel in Vermilion, coming from Cleveland.  Just west of downtown, NS/NKP heads south to Bellevue.  A new connector is being built in the Vermilion area.

In the downtown area from Liberty Avenue (US-6), go south on Main Street (OH-60) one block and cross the ex-CR mainline.  Free parking is available right next to the mainline at Vermilion's 'Town Square', Victory Park - an exceptional location for train-watching.  This beautiful park features benches, picnic tables, barbeque grills, a Grand Gazebo, a childrens' play area and rose gardens. An historically preserved wooden station, Vermilion's New York Central Station, sits adjacent to the park.  There are ample off-railroad shots available for both am and pm shots.  Dining, restrooms, shopping and history galore are all a few steps away.

Rotary Centennial Park overlooks the Vermilion River under the historic water tower on West River Road in Harbour Town.  This award winning park features flowering trees, plantings, benches, picnic tables and breathtaking views of the river and railroad tracks.  The park also features an historical marker plaque highlighting Vermilion's railroad history.

At this site the Lake Shore Electric Railway crossed a bridge that spanned the Vermilion River. The western abutment of the former bridge is plainly visible just below along the river bank. Widely known as the "Greatest Electric Railway in the United States," the flaming orange trolley cars of the Lake Shore Electric Railway transported people and freight for thirty-seven years (1901-1938) along the southern Lake Erie shores from Cleveland to Toledo often reaching speeds of sixty miles per hour. The interurban line played a primary role in the development of the western Cleveland suburbs and also carried throngs of summer visitors to Lake Erie recreation facilities. The power lines still standing along the system's right-of-way attest to the fact that it also assisted in bringing electric power to the entire region. 

All along the ex-CR and ex-NKP lines in the downtown area are terrific photo locations.  Spend the day, maybe two, to take in all that is Vermilion.

The Nickel Plate Station is also being restored and will serve as a second railroad museum and commuter train station.  The Vermilion Train, Rail, and Depot Buffs record history, preserve artifacts and has bimonthly meetings on the Commuter Rail Program which will offer commuter rail from Cleveland to Vermilion and beyond.

VERMILION'S EAST END

Coming into Vermilion from the east on Liberty Avenue (US-6), you will cross over the NS (ex-N&W, exx-NKP) mainline.  Going west on US-6, turn left onto Vermilion Road and you will come to the NS (ex-CR, exx-PC, exxx-NYC) tracks at grade.  Walk along the tracks for a short distance to the east, and you will see the point where ex-CR crosses over ex-NKP.  Go back to Liberty Avenue (US-6) and make a left towards town.  Right after passing over the Vermilion River, make a left on West River Road, and go under the ex-CR tracks.  The beautiful Vermilion Public Boat Docks park on the left offers fantastic view of trains passing over the Vermilion River bridge.  Don't miss the views from Rotary Park when heading back into town (see above.)

VERMILLION'S WEST SIDE, NS/EX-CR CONNECTION

In the infrastructure work done by Norfolk Southern prior to the break-up of Conrail, this connection was a key piece in northern Ohio.  Just west of Vermillion, the ex-CR, exx-NYC, Chicago line and the NS, ex-NKP line are parallel and quite close to each other.  Both lines are just south of US-6.  A connection was put in as follows: The junction at the north, the ex-CR line, was put in to the south of Daylon Court, a subdivision-type street.  There is no access to the tracks without getting permission from a home-owner.  The south end junction with the ex-NKP is just to the east of Coen Road, and is wide open. This connection serves three major purposes:  1.  It can take NKP freights that had to crawl thru the western suburbs of Cleveland, and get them thru town via the much faster ex-CR tracks.  2.  Slow freights can be taken off the ex-CR and routed west via Bellevue.  Therefore, it should be easier to get time-sensitive trains over the ex-CR.  3.  Either line can serve as a safety  valve/relief outlet for the other.

The Lake Shore Electric Railway

The first trolleys ran from Sandusky to Vermilion in 1899, an offshoot of the Sandusky Street Railway, the Sandusky & Interurban Electric Railway. City-style cars prowled the rails when it opened from Sandusky to Vermilion via Huron on July 26, 1899, a 24-mile sprint. Work gangs toiled eastward to meet the Lorain & Cleveland in Lorain, another 10-mile hop. The S & I was built with an expansive eye to the future -- double track provisions were engineered into all bridges as well as into the roadbed. It was a combination roadside and private right-of-way operation. In the autumn of 1901, the Everett-Moore Syndicate absorbed the S & I and others to create the Lake Shore Electric Railway.

The Lake Shore Electric Railway (LSE) was an interurban electric railway that ran primarily between Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. Through arrangements with connecting interurban lines; it also offered service to Fostoria and Lima, Ohio, and Detroit. The line served many communities along the south shore of Lake Erie, at a time of mostly horse-drawn vehicles on dirt roads, with innovative, high-speed transportation that rivaled the area's steam railroads. It helped to develop tourism as a major industry in northern Ohio; by serving several lake shore recreation areas (some owned by LSE and others privately owned) such as Avon Beach Park in Avon Lake; Linwood Park in Vermilion; Crystal Beach, Beulah Beach, Mitiwanga Park and Ruggles Grove (Ruggles Beach) between Vermilion and Huron; Sage's Grove and Rye Beach in Huron. It also brought large numbers of visitors to a ferry dock serving a small beach park and picnic ground off Sandusky called Cedar Point, that evolved into the giant amusement park resort of today. It was formed August 29, 1901 through the merger of several smaller interurban railways: Lorain and Cleveland Railway, running between Cleveland and Lorain, and intent on building westward at the time of the merger. Sandusky and Interurban Railway (S&I), which had begun as a local transit operation in Sandusky, and was building eastward from Huron to Lorain at the time of the merger. Toledo, Fremont and Norwalk Railway (TF&N), serving Toledo, Fremont, and Norwalk and building eastward toward Lorain at the time of the merger. Sandusky, Milan and Norwalk Railway, formed in 1893 and one of the earliest interurban railway companies in the United States, between Sandusky and Norwalk, via Milan. This line served as the earliest physical connection between the Sandusky and Interurban Railway and the Toledo, Fremont and Norwalk Railway after the merger. It became a branch line after completion of the previously planned TF&N line east from Norwalk to connect to the S&I at "Ceylon Junction", a few miles east of Huron. It was also the first portion of the Lake Shore Electric system to be abandoned, ending service on March 29, 1928. The LSE later added the following interurban lines and operated them as branches: Lorain Street Railway, which ran between Lorain and Elyria and operated Lorain local transit services. 

Avon Beach and Southern Railway, which ran between South Lorain and "Beach Park" in Avon Lake, the location of a Lake Shore Electric resort park, passenger station, car barn and electrical generating station. A small portion of this line is the only part of the original LSE system still in operation today, becoming what is now a Norfolk Southern Railway branch serving the FirstEnergy Corporation's Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company(CEI) generating station at Avon Lake. This plant was first built to replace the LSE power plant at the same location that was destroyed in an explosion and fire in 1925. 

The Lake Shore Electric built a short branch to Gibsonburg, Ohio that opened on December 21, 1901. This branch was built as part of a planned expansion by LSE south and west to Findlay and Lima. This goal was reached instead by joint services with the Fostoria and Fremont Railway and the Western Ohio Railway and the line never went beyond Gibsonburg. It built a new route between Fremont and Sandusky via Castalia, commencing service on July 21, 1907, and later relocated some of its lines in Huron (opened in 1918) and Sandusky (opened in 1931).

The Lake Shore Electric at its height offered multiple-unit trains of interurban cars from Cleveland and Toledo. These trains would split in Fremont on the west and at Ceylon Junction (a passenger station on the former S&I line east of Huron at the connection with the former TF&N branch to Norwalk) on the east. After splitting; some cars would travel via the Huron, Sandusky and Castalia route and other cars would go via the Norwalk, Monroeville, Bellevue, and Clyde, route. The service was scheduled so the cars would re-join at Fremont and Ceylon Junction, respectively, to continue on to their destinations in Toledo or Cleveland.

The Lake Shore Electric achieved national notoriety through the heroism of a motorman, William Lang, who climbed out of his moving trolley car and snatched a 22-month old child off the tracks on August 24th, 1932 near Lorain, Ohio. The young girl, Leila Jean Smith, grew to adulthood and they remained friends for the rest of his life.

As its passenger business waned with the increasing number of private automobiles on paved roads, it outlived most connecting interurban lines by concentrating on freight services. However, the Lake Shore Electric went into bankruptcy on October 5, 1932 and ended interurban rail operations on May 15, 1938, with Car #167 making the last run out of Cleveland.

Several physical remnants of the Lake Shore Electric can still be found today. In the cities of Bay Village and Avon Lake are streets named "Electric," running over the former right-of-way. Also, bridge piers can be found at the Cleveland Metroparks Huntington Reservation and in Rose Hill park, both in Bay Village, and at several other locations. Much of its route can still be traced in northern Ohio by power lines on unusually high utility poles, where LSE's former electrical transmission infrastructure became the property of area utility companies.

Norfolk Southern Railway

The Norfolk Southern (AAR reporting marks NS) is a major Class I railroad in the United States, owned by the Norfolk Southern Corporation. The company operates 21,500 route miles in 22 eastern states, the District of Columbia and the province of Ontario, Canada. The most common commodity hauled on the railroad is coal from mines in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The railroad also offers an extensive intermodal network in eastern North America. The current system was planned in 1982 with the formation of the Norfolk Southern Corporation, merged on December 31, 1990 with the lease of the Norfolk and Western Railway by the Southern Railway which had been renamed Norfolk Southern. In 1999, the Norfolk Southern Railway grew substantially with the acquisition of over half of Conrail.

Norfolk Southern is currently buying DC traction diesel locomotives. There are a small number of AC traction diesels on their roster. They are EMD SD80MACs, all of which were inherited from Conrail. Currently, 10 of the 17 EMD SD80MACs are assigned to the locomotive pool in South Fork, Pennsylvania. Other AC locomotives also on the roster include a dwindling number of aging GP38ACs of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway heritage.

Norfolk Southern's GE Dash-9 locomotives are often called "catfish" by railfans, as the stripes are said to look like catfish whiskers. The locomotive numbered 4610, a GM-EMD GP59, is painted in predecessor Southern Railway colors of green and white with gold trim and is a favorite of railfans. The work was done at the Debutts Yard in Chattanooga, Tennessee during the summer of 1994 and the locomotive received a repaint in the summer of 2004.

The current paint scheme for NS locomotives is black and white. Many of the locomotives are painted with a rearing horse on the nose, which is consistent with prior marketing campaigns where NS has billed itself as "The Thoroughbred".

In 2005, Norfolk Southern added two new types of locomotives to its roster: the EMD SD70M-2s, which when all are delivered, will be numbered 2649–2778, and GE ES40DCs, which will be numbered 7500-7719.

In September 2008, Norfolk Southern purchased 24 new GE ES44AC locomotives numbered 8000-8023 and they began receiving these units in October 2008. They are the first new AC locomotives ever purchased by NS. These new locomotives will be used for pusher service on long haul coal trains.

New York Central Railroad

The New York Central Railroad (AAR reporting marks NYC), known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States. Headquartered in New York, the railroad served most of the Northeast, including extensive trackage in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Massachusetts, plus additional trackage in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Its primary connections included Chicago and Boston. The NYC's Grand Central Terminal in New York City is one of its best known extant landmarks.

In 1968 the NYC merged with its former rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad, to form Penn Central (the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad joined in 1969). That company soon went bankrupt and was taken over by the federal government and merged into Conrail in 1976. Conrail was broken up in 1998, and portions of its system was transferred to the newly-formed New York Central Lines LLC, a subsidiary leased to, and eventually absorbed by CSX. That company's lines included the original New York Central main line, but outside that area it included lines that were never part of the NYC system.

The famous Water Level Route of the NYC, from New York City to upstate New York, was the first four-track long-distance railroad in the world.

For most of the twentieth century the New York Central was known to have some of the most famous train routes in the United States. Its 20th Century Limited, begun in 1902, ran from Grand Central Terminal in New York to LaSalle Street Station Chicago and was its most famous train, known for its red carpet treatment and first class service. The Century, which followed the Water Level Route, could complete the 960.7-mile trip in just 16 hours after its June 15, 1938 streamlining (and did it in 15 1/2 hours for a short period after WWII). Also famous was its frequent Empire State Express service through upstate New York to Buffalo and Cleveland, and Ohio State Limited service from New York to Cincinnati. In addition to long distance service, the NYC also provided vital commuter service for residents of Westchester County, New York, along its Hudson, Harlem, and Putnam lines, into Manhattan.

CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation (AAR reporting marks CSXT) is a Class I railroad in the United States, owned by the CSX Corporation. It is one of the three Class I railroads serving most of the East Coast, the other two being the Norfolk Southern Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway.

CSX Transportation was formed on July 1, 1986 as a renaming of the Seaboard System Railroad and Chessie System, Inc. into one entity. The originator of the Seaboard System was the former Seaboard Air Line Railroad, which previously merged Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, and later Louisville and Nashville Railroad, as well as several smaller subsidiaries. On August 31, 1987 the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, which had absorbed the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on April 30 of that year, merged into CSX. The merger had been started in 1982 with the merger of Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line Industries to form the CSX Corporation.

On June 23, 1997, CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern filed a joint application with the Surface Transportation Board for authority to purchase, divide and operate the assets of the 11,000-mile Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail), which had been created in 1976 by bringing together several ailing Northeastern railway systems into a government-owned corporation. On June 6, 1998, the STB approved the CSX-Norfolk Southern application and set August 22, 1998, as the effective date of its decision. CSX acquired 42% of Conrail's assets, and Norfolk Southern received the remaining 58%.

As a result of the transaction, CSX's rail operations grew to include some 3,800 miles of the Conrail system (predominantly lines that had belonged to the former New York Central Railroad). CSX began operating its trains on its portion of the Conrail network on June 1, 1999. CSX now serves much of the eastern U.S., with a few routes into nearby Canadian cities.

The name came about during merger talks between Chessie System, Inc. and Seaboard System Railroad, Inc., commonly called Chessie and Seaboard. The company chairmen said it was important for the new name to include neither of those names due to its being a partnership. Employees were asked for suggestions, most of which consisted of combinations of the initials. At the same time a temporary shorthand name was needed for discussions with the Interstate Commerce Commission. CSC was chosen but belonged to a trucking company in Virginia. CSM (for Chessie-Seaboard Merger) was also taken. The lawyers decided to use CSX, and the name stuck. In the public announcement, it was said that "CSX is singularly appropriate. C can stand for Chessie, S for Seaboard, and X, the multiplication symbol, means that together we are so much more." The T had to be added to use CSXT as a reporting mark, since company initials that end in X can be used only by non-railroad railcar owners.

Nickel Plate Road

The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (AAR reporting marks NKP), abbreviated NYC&St.L, was a railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. Commonly referred to as the Nickel Plate Road, the railroad served a large area, including trackage in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Its primary connections included Buffalo, New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana, St. Louis, Missouri and Toledo, Ohio.

The Nickel Plate Railroad was constructed in 1881 along the South Shore of the Great Lakes connecting Buffalo, New York and Chicago to compete with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. In 1964, the Nickel Plate Road and several other mid-western carriers were merged into Norfolk and Western Railway and the Nickel Plate Road was no more. The N&W was formed to be a more competitive and successful system serving 14 states and the Canadian province of Ontario on more than 7,000 miles (11,000 km) of railroad. The profitable N&W was itself combined with the Southern Railway, another profitable carrier, to form Norfolk Southern Corporation (NS) in 1982.

Radio Frequencies

Norfolk Southern:
Former N&W Territory:
161.190 - Ch. 1 Road
161.250 - Ch. 2 Road
161.440 - Ch. 3 Road
161.490 - Ch. 9 MofW

Former CR Territory:
160.800 - Ch. 1 Road (includes Chicago Line and Indianapolis Line)
161.070 - Ch. 2 Road (includes former TOC lines)

Systemwide:
161.115 - End-of-train telemetry
161.205 - Police
161.535 - Ch. 4 Signal Dept.

Bellevue:
161.340 - Hump
161.190 - Yardmaster
160.665 - Locomotive Shop
160.485 - Car Department
161.490 - MoW

Columbus:
161.250 - Ch. 2 Yard
161.280 - Yard
160.380 - Signal Department

Portsmouth:
160.470 - Crew Bus
161.385 - Car Shop
160.485 - Car Department
161.250 - Ch. 2 Yard

CSX:
160.230* - Ch.1 Road and dispatcher
161.370* - Ch.2 Road and dispatcher
160.590* - Ch.3 Road and dispatcher
160.800* - Former Conrail Road (includes Indy & Columbus Lines)
160.785 - MofW-Systemwide

Note: An asterick (*) indicates that Amtrak may operate over that route.