Auroraadvocate.com - Kaleidoscope: Exploring railroad relics in East Ohio

by Ken Lahmers

Editor

Having become a "rail fan" -- the term used to describe a train enthusiast -- I'm always looking for things to do relating to motive power.

With forecasters predicting an unusually warm weekend Dec. 27-28, I decided to hunt relics on long-abandoned railroad lines in Eastern Ohio.

Although rails along many of the routes through Tuscarawas, Jefferson, Harrison, Belmont and Guernsey counties have been pulled up, some remnants remain and make good subjects for viewing and taking photos.

Not only did I visit some interesting spots, my trip ended near Cambridge with a 1 1/2-hour talk with a man who really has a passion for railroading.

More about him in a future column.

Bridges, yards, tunnels

With a map of old rail lines and some books of steam locomotives operating on them on the seat beside me, I rolled out of Kent at 8 a.m. that Saturday.

First I headed to Gnadenhutten in Tuscarawas County, where I've always wanted to photograph the twin highway/railroad bridges along Route 36.

I traversed the highway bridge many times when I was growing up down there.

The truss-style steel bridges span the Tuscarawas River. It's difficult to get both of them in the same shot when leaves are on the trees, but this time of year is perfect.

The highway bridge is painted a light green, but the RR bridge on the Ohio Central System -- old Pennsylvania RR Panhandle Line -- is either painted a dark color or is just plain rusty.

I couldn't have been luckier. As I stood on the single track at one end of the RR bridge, I saw the headlight of a train approaching in the distance.

I stood away from the track and watched as five engines and about 50 empty hopper cars passed, coming from the upper Ohio River valley.

Only one engine was pulling the train; the other four had no operators and were just along for the ride to another location.

As I walked back to my car, an elderly fellow waiting to pull out from a county road onto Route 36 asked me if I was a train buff. Ironically, he told me he once was a telegrapher on a railroad.

NEXT, IT WAS on to Adena in Jefferson County, where Wheeling & Lake Erie and later the Nickel Plate Road and Norfolk & Western once had a large yard where coal trains were assembled for their journey to the Lake Erie shore.

I have a handful of books with several photos taken in the late 1940s-early 1950s at the yard, and wanted to see if I could recognize anything.

I was overjoyed as I passed an old wooden trestle that I recognized in a photo. I spent 30 minutes checking it out and climbing to the track bed at one end of the 200-foot long span over a creek.

The trestle once was part of the Adena branch to Neffs, which joined the main line in the yard a few hundred feet away.

No signs are visible of the old yard. It was situated beside the old football field for Adena and later Buckeye West high schools.

The concrete stands, built as a WPA project in 1937, remain. I covered a couple of football games there in the mid-1970s, when I worked for The Times-Leader in neighboring Belmont County.

Norfolk & Western coal trains were still being assembled in the yard then, and activity on the now out-of-service main line was brisk during Friday night football games.

About a mile from the old yard is the 500-foot long Adena tunnel. I wanted to walk through it, but getting there required going across private property, so I refrained.

I HEADED east to Dillonvale, keeping an eye on the W&LE rails. There once was a busy yard there called Pine Valley, but it also has disappeared in the last 25 years.

I followed the Adena branch a few miles south into Belmont County, where it once passed through the 1,148-foot long Harrisville tunnel, the longest bore on any of the original W&LE tracks.

I drove through Barton, a former Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Co. town, where the Eastern Ohio branch of the B&O once was prominent. All track has been removed, and the mighty Y&O is no longer in business.

The Barton tunnel is hidden somewhere in the hills, but I couldn't find anyone in town old enough to pinpoint its location so I could explore it.

On my way to St. Clairsville, I went under a couple of impressive old bridges on the Adena branch, and eventually came to the St. C. tunnel under the National Road.

When I lived in St. C., I passed over the tunnel dozens of times, never knowing it was there. A drugstore sets about 60 feet atop the tunnel, which was built in the late 1800s.

The 532-foot long, 40-foot high bore is part of the 4-mile National Road Bikeway, the only rail-to-trail facility in Ohio which features a tunnel. After several years without train traffic, the line was converted to a trail in 1997.

Other railroad relics

After staying overnight in St. Clairsville, I headed to Bellaire, where an old truss bridge spans the Ohio River to Benwood, W. Va.

The former B&O bridge was built in 1870 and is still used by W&LE. Leading up to the bridge is a magnificent 1,433-foot long stone arch viaduct, with 43 arches each 35 feet high.

Part of the viaduct is still used and links with a steel trestle which takes W&LE traffic north toward Bridgeport and Martins Ferry. Another part once took B&O trains to the western part of Belmont County and on to Cambridge.

Twelve miles south along the Ohio River to Powhattan Point and 10 miles west to Alledonia I encountered modern day RR activity.

Along Route 148, coal was being loaded into hopper cars at the tipple of Ohio Valley Coal Co.'s huge Powhattan No. 6 underground mine, which annually produces 4 million to 5 million tons.

As I paused beside the highway, the loading operation had just started and the first hopper was being filled. There probably were 40 to 50 more cars waiting behind it. The coal goes east to the Ohio River docks.

Heading toward Guernsey County, I stopped to admire and photograph the former B&O depot in Barnesville. Built in 1917, the brick structure has been restored and sets along what is planned to be a rail-to-trail conversion.

E-mail:

klahmers@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3155