B&O Lake Branch

Here is a picture I just took recently of the area they call Summit on the B&O Branch east of Middlefield Ohio.

From 1994 to 1996 I worked for the Ohio Central operating the section of the Lake Branch from Copperweld Steel to Deforest Junction as the Warren & Trumbull Railroad.  I was conductor, Doug Vernor was engineer, and our locomotive was the WTRM No.52, an SW 1200 switcher.  Here I am about to flag Youngstown Road in 1994.  

Luntz Bros. scrap yard next to Copperweld is where a great number of locomotives went to be cut up, including the original PRR K4, 1737.  I have a B&W photo in my collection of four EM-1s on the siding at Deforest Jct. waiting for a trip up to Luntz. 

The Warren & Trumbull had 24 grade crossings in eight miles, and all of the crossing protection worked for only about a week before failures started to crop up.  Before long it got to the point where we had to stop at most of the crossings and I manually activated the protection before we could cross.  The local kids knew exactly where to break bond wires so that FOUR grade crossings would activate! 

Getting called at 2 am by Warren Police to go out to Burton Street to raise the gates, in the middle of the 'hood, resulted in the quickest opening and closing of a railroad relay case in history!

Rick,

Do you have the road numbers of those four EM-1's? I photographed them at Painesville in August, 1956 as a young kid and am interested in their final trip.

If I find the photos in the vast archives that i call my office I'll let you know.