In '78 and '79, still in high school, I took up photography, the old man's profession. We were a Columbus, Ohio RR family, he volunteered at the Ohio RR Museum. With a joint interest, we hung out at the "temporary" Amtrak station in Columbus and I cut my teeth with low light photography on the National. One photo I took of one of the last runs won an award at the Ohio State fair just before I went into the Navy in 1980 and hangs in my living today. No service for Columbus since then either. Funny though, recently, a friend asked if we had photos of that box of an Amtrak station. Lots of photos of the train, the B&O switcher, but none of that crummy station!
Fast forward to the late '80's, post Navy, Dad and I revived the tradition, only it was a long drive to Crestline to catch the Broadway. Of course it's gone too!
In June of '41, Columbus was served by 61 trains, 122 arrivals and departures daily. I wonder how that compared to service out of the airport today (although a lot of these trains were local).
Bob
Originally Posted by Jim Tighe:
Actually, No. 30 doesn't look all that bad in this shot, except for the power. Over the next few years, the "National" would garner one of Amtrak's worst reputations, so bad that the Sunnyside Yard workers who assembled the consists were often ashamed to send them out. I watched the last one leave Dayton in Oct., '79. Now IT was shabby; just pitiful. I stood on the platform until I could no longer hear the whistle, as the pea soup fog enveloped this sad little conclusion to decades of PRR service. The "Spirit of St. Louis" this wasn't. Today, train, station and tracks are all gone. Dayton has had no service since, on any route.
ALTO is going to be gone soon as well.