Nostalgia & History > Mike Ondecker photos - Marion, Ohio

Here are three more Instamatic photos taken by the late Mike Ondecker. These are all from Marion, Ohio in the mid-1960's and show less-often photographed scenes.
Bob

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Number three is a CLASSIC!

Uncle Joe
Seffner,Fl.

Super interesting photos. I don't know Marion OH area -- could you tell us what railroad this is? Also if I look at a map, it appears that these shots are facing east, looking towards the crossings (there appear to be two separate sets of diamonds) and the "union station" seems to be barely visible on the south side (to the right in the photos). Is that right?

Mike had an eye for the view. Even with an Instamatic, he could capture a slice of time better than many of my images.
Uncle Joe: I agree that number three is a classic. It captures Marion and its history in a unique way.
hotmail. You are correct about the location. There are so many interesting details such as the crossing guard's shack and the signal bridges.
Bob

hotrail Wrote:
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> Super interesting photos. I don't know Marion OH
> area -- could you tell us what railroad this is?
> Also if I look at a map, it appears that these
> shots are facing east, looking towards the
> crossings (there appear to be two separate sets of
> diamonds) and the "union station" seems to be
> barely visible on the south side (to the right in
> the photos). Is that right?


This is looking east, at beginning of joint EL-NYC track from Marion to just outside of Galion,OH. AC tower is on the north side (left) of the tracks.

That signal bridge with two sets of semaphores and one set of tri-lights is interesting. Are the blades on the EL and the lights on the NYC?

3 more very interesting shots by Mr.Ondecker .
Love the third shot when most of the signals on the EL in Marion were semaphores.
The guard and guard shack lasted to Conrail.
Gary

retcsxcfm Wrote:
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> Number three is a CLASSIC!
>
> Uncle Joe
> Seffner,Fl.

Unc is right on. Number three is indeed a CLASSIS.
Mike's composition was excellent.
ALLEN

My vote goes to #2. The Koehring crane is really rare. It was intended to compete with the Burro cranes but had the added attraction of being able to work away from the rails on its crawlers. As you can see in the photo it had a little cart with rail wheels and could climb onto it from the side with the crawlers crosswise. It was then connected to the cart's drive mechanism making it self-propelled. Very cool and very special.

KG