Nostalgia & History > Erie Lackawanna RS-3 at Sterling (Oh) Tower -- Dec 75

Waiting on a signal, #1051 is working eastbound on a local (on the Erie Lackawanna Chicago-Hoboken line - about 21 miles west of Akron).
It will cross the B&O Washington-Chicago line at the tower. The two railroads paralleled each other for a few miles on either side of the crossing.
A B&O branch line north started at Sterling also.
Today - the EL line, tower and buildings are gone. CSX still operates both ex-B&O lines.

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Back in the 60's there was a collision here, forgot who got killed. I read it somewhere, maybe in one of my EL books.

MILW86A

There has been a few instances at Sterling.

Two trains collided head on Jan. 17, 1969. Five men were killed as a B&O Extra passed an absolute stop signal and headed directed into the path of an oncoming Erie freight killing the engineer, firemen, and head brakemen of the Erie train and the engineer and fireman of the B&O train.

William H. Taft was on a train that derailed at Sterling in 1908.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=990CE2DA113EE033A25757C1A9669D946997D6CF

Another accident occurred near Sterling in 1918.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sponholz/rittmanwreck.html

Ken
Sterling Ohio Railfans aka "The Loop"

The collision between the B&O and EL trains was on 1/11/65. Here's a link to a photo.

http://www.wle.railfan.net/winners.html

Exopr

Thanks exopr for the correction. I was trying to remember off the top of my head. I try to keep Sterling information and for the life of me I couldn't find the wreck information. I couldn't find my hard copy but finally succeeded in finding where I got the report. It is very interesting reading.

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/el/bldg/sterling.html