Train spots/tourist lines in Ohio and eastward?

About 35 minutes South of I-80 near Bellvue is Fostoria. Fostoria is crazy for trains. There is a new railfan park and you will see trains like you have never seen before. And is Bellvue is the Mad River Railroad Museum, which is next to Norfolk Southern tracks.

Greenville PA, a little ways off of 80 has a nice outdoor steam engine, a giant switcher

Thanks, will check them out.

I don't know how far into Pennsylvania your travels will take you. Altoona is some distance south of I-80 and Scranton (steam town) is somewhat north of I-80.

http://greenville.tripod.com/rrpark.html

Sam

Not sure where in PA yo are going, but two stops off 80 are, 1 Mercer Junction - Dave has a great train ship, and it is really close to the highway, like maybe 5 min off.

http://mercerjunction.com/

Also Altoona has some great train things to see, there is the railroad museum

http://www.railroadcity.com/

and Horseshoe curve is great for trainspotting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_Curve_(Pennsylvania)

There are certainly others, these two make my list.

It's just shy of an hour detour from Akron down I-77 to the Dover/New Philadelphia exit. You can stop by Warther Carvings and see the hand-carved history of steam engines. If you have time, you can go over through Sugarcreek and down toward Baltic and see the Age of Steam Roundhouse. It's not open to the public, but you can drive by if you don't block traffic. The Dennison Depot Museum is a couple of exits south of Dover. That whole area is touristy and you won't be bored, nor are you going to starve with all the Amish restaurants.

Greenville Pa is about 20 miles off route 80. Very nice, worth the trip IMHO

We are going to visit the Pittsburgh area then to Hagerstown MD to visit our "inlaws and outlaws",  Back to Iowa via CincyTrains recommendation Fostoria Ohio then stop at our  alma mater, Valparaiso Indiana, then home to Iowa.  Being retired, no time frame!!  Was not planning eastward to Horseshoe (been there done that)

The New York Central RR Museum isn't too far off of I 80 in Elkhart IN. Its small. but theres a Mohawk , an E8 a GG1 and a nice NYC woodsided caboose and some old passenger cars. A good amount of railroad artifacts/memorobilia and a sizeable operating ( O guage?) layout as well.

NYC RR Museum

Heres a sampling from when I was there back in '08.

CincyTrains,

You were right on with Fostoria.  We spent the morning at the new Iron Triangle park.  Very nice set up. You can almost get right up to trackside without trespassing (telephotos gets you right up there and personal).  Got ALOT of pictures and videos of NS and CSX and even a UP and BNSF going through.  Alot of engineers obliged with extra honks or longer than usual grade crossing honking.  Only problem was sometimes horn sound were misleading fooling you into thinking train was coming here but actually was other side of park.  Scanner helped though for this newbie had to rely on veterans to decipher what was going on as far a tracks and movements. 

Then went to Dreshler and watched as CSX replaced four diamonds.  Photoed the tower and dilapidated depot and the CPL signals from public spots.

Im glad you liked it and saw many trains. My in-laws live about 20 minutes away in Findlay. Whenever we go see them I always go to Fostoria for a day. Out here in NYC, you never see freight trains like that..I hope that the railfan park brings some people to Fostoria. It is such a depressed town.