Eastern Railroad Discussion > On the Fault Line Between Autumn and Winter

I had a rare weekday day off on Tuesday because my employer celebrates Veterans Day on Tuesday and not Monday. Overnight, about 2 to 4 inches of wet, slushy snow had fallen on Northeast Ohio, depending on your location. Many of the leaves have yet to fall from the trees and there is still quite a bit of spot color in the foliage.

I headed for the Brady Lake-Kent area to see what I could find on the fault line that straddles the end of autumn and the beginning of winter. Officially, winter doesn't begin for more than another month, but this was the second significant snowfall I've had at my house, the other having occurred a week before Halloween.

A disabled westbound Norfolk Southern intermodal train at Twin Lakes was my first "find," which I made during a snow squall. (Photo 1). I would hear on the radio that it was having locomotive problems. I mistakenly thought at the time that it was being held for single tracking further west. Note the small patch of yellow in the trees to the right.

There was some nice snow on the trees at Towner's Wood park in Brady Lake, but when I heard the NS Cleveland Line dispatcher give a maintainer permission at CP 86 until 12:02 p.m. on Track No. 1 I decided that things might be slim on NS for a while.

So I headed into Kent and set up shop on the Main Street bridge. The weather was mixture of snow squalls, cloudy skies and sunshine. There was still enough fall foliage to make things interesting.

The sun had found a large gap in the clouds when the D750 rumbled through (Photo 2). Not long after that, the Q015 came past (Photo 3). Note that in the far right corner of the image above the bridge there is a bit of sunlight on the foliage back there. This is the same train that Forever-Railfan-45 would catch later in Akron that he showed in his post.

Although stack trains have been operating on the New Castle Subdivision for a while, this is the first one that I've photographed on the line.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/13 03:17 by SDP40F600.

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On my way into Kent I had spotted the Akron Barberton Cluster job as I crossed the former Erie Lackawanna tracks on Lake Rockwell Road. The job ended up working at Ravenna and it would be past 1 p.m. before it passed through Kent on its way back to Brittain Yard in Akron.

There were snow showers around as the Q299 made its way west past the decorative dam on the Cuyahoga River in Kent. A stand of foliage adds some color to the scene (Photo 4)

The ABC job finally showed up in time for a heavy squall (Photo 5). It is shown in downtown Kent with the Star of the West grain elevator on the right. The facility has a track car out to move the covered hopper cars that are barely visible.

I still wanted to get some NS action so I returned to Brady Lake where I spent the balance of the afternoon. Photo 6 shows a westbound RoadRailer passing a rather large tree that is still strutting its stuff as the fast-moving train sends a fine mist of snow flying.

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There were a few off and on snow showers during the afternoon interspersed with some sunny periods. I took advantage of the latter to take some fall-into-winter images of trees still displaying color but covered with snow.

Cloudy skies, though, ruled as a westbound NS stack train approaches. There's a patch of yellow to the right and snow-covered vegetation is all around (Photo 7).

An eastbound intermodal train passes a snow-covered hillside just west of Ravenna Road (Photo 8).

I'll wrap up the story with my last train of the day, an NS eastbound intermodal named 20 something or the other. It passes my tree of the day. The train is enveloped in shadows, but the tree has managed to catch some sunlight. I managed to catch a star effect in the headlight.

Winter is just beginning and there will be deeper snows and more dramatic images to be made. But for my first winter outing of the season I was pleased with the results.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/13 03:11 by SDP40F600.

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Great series of shots!
Dan

Posted from iPhone

Wow! That's some real photography. Beautiful catches and compositions.

Danny Harmon
Tampa

You really did well with this series of photos. I get cold just looking at your first image.
John

A nice series Craig. As I was getting covered in the white stuff while switching at work I was really wanting to be out with the camera :)
RAD

GREAT pics in the snow!!!!!! Thanks for sharing.

Yes, Roger, I thought about you as I was out in the snow. Some day.

Thanks for the compliments guys. They are much appreciated.