Nostalgia & History > Erie Lackawanna deadline at Marion,Oh -- March 76

On the west side of the shops -- an all Alco deadline. Mostly RS-3 with a few S4.

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Nice pic! Wow look at that track! EL had nothing on the CNW! Can you say deferred maintenence! Wow nothing but
ubblegum and alot of luck holding that coathanger rail together! Is the yard still there today? Got any pics of it in the 80s to present? Thanks for sharing!

Telephoto lenses make the track structure look worse than it actually is. This said, track structure in the 70's, 80's and 90's did get run down in major ways, mostly as a result of the underlying tie condition.

It was amazing what you could actually get over if you were carefull.

mdo

Still there is no denying EL hadn't put ANY maintenence into that yard for many years. No ballast whatsoever and probably all rotted ties and light rail, pretty sad! I can smell the oil and creosote from here.

That track is cool.

Sure wish I knew how to model track like that - and make it work!

(Yeah, I'm a Milwaukee modeller.)

Cool to look at, NOT cool to run a locomotive on or be the poor switchman working in between them pullin pins!
Never know when you might end up under a boxcar from a derailment on track like that. No doubt FRA excepted track.

Thanks for sharing the pictures. I remember seeing strings of RS-3's doing the "Ashland Turn." From a distance the smoke looked like a steam locomotive under a load. I heard that the Marion Yard was built on a swamp and that drainage was a problem. Don't know if it was true.

Rail1 Wrote:
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> Cool to look at, NOT cool to run a locomotive on
> or be the poor switchman working in between them
> pullin pins!

I was one of those CNW switchmen. We used to chase rats with Alco switch engines. They'd run down the track ahead of the engines headlight, till they got into the shadow - the trick was to time it so they'd try to hop the rail at the same time as the wheels caught up to 'em. If successful - one less rat to run up your pantsleg on a dark night.

> Never know when you might end up under a boxcar
> from a derailment on track like that.

Sometimes, it actually would amaze me at what would actually stay on the track! Ya just didn't stand that close to 'em.

I really feared the rats more than a derailment.

> No doubt FRA excepted track.

Well, the Department of Transportation and it's subgroup the FRA wasn't organized until about a decade later.

looks like the rails in Grand Rapids, MI where i work.NS ex- Prr yard.
Some of the rail has 1899 still on it.
the ties the ycan replace, jsut make it look good.
old yard, deferred maint. But, i love it.
Scott in Michigan

A portion of the old EL Marion yard is now a Union Tank Car facility, where tank cars are maintained and cleaned. Another portion of the yard is now a small stub-ended local yard for CSX (who took over the old NYC/Big 4 from Conrail). The rest of the yard is gone.

MTMEngineer Wrote:
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> That track is cool.
>
> Sure wish I knew how to model track like that -
> and make it work!
>
> (Yeah, I'm a Milwaukee modeller.)



I model track like that all the time. It seems to come naturally to me. LOL

Greg