Erie Lackawanna Questions

[Rich Jacobson]

Hello. I'm very interested in this railroad and in particular, it's larger road power - SD45, SD45-2 and SDP45. Are there any websites that focus on this RR and these locomotives? Is there any place out there that I might find web shots, prints or slides of this railroad in action through northern Indiana? Just looking for some help. Thanks in advance. Rich.

[rogerhensley]

Can't speak of Indiana, but a good place to start is George Elwood's Fallen Flags site at: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/

You can go directly to the EL pages at: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/el/el.html but there are links to other site from the main page. You'll find a wealth of info there.

[robert_b1]

Erie Lackawanna Photos
http://el.railfan.net/
http://www.erielackhs.org/EL/ELHOME.html
http://www.erielackhs.org/Erie/ERIEHOME.html
http://www.trainweb.org/fwarailfan/el.htm
http://www.geocities.com/eriewalt/el.html

[Eric]

If you want to get a feel on what was running on the EL here in Indiana i sugest the book "Erie Lackawanna the West End" by george Elwood. Great book that documents the west end of the EL.

Roger, I noticed your call. Its good to see other fellow hams that are interested in railfanning..

Eric......   KC9GUZ

[Rich Jacobson]

Hello. First, allow me to say thank you for the very helpful responses. I had seen a few EL pictures on railpictures.net, but did not know about these other sights, these are great!!
 Also, I actually purchased this EL book, regarding the west end a couple years ago(terrific book!). Between the book and living in Fort Wayne a couple of times and traveling around the former right of way of this once great RR, I'm hooked.
 Thank you again for the great responses and if anyone else has anymore suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Rich.

[Dave1984]

This is short slide presentation of various photos I found on the net, mainly the EL and later the 77-79' era of the EW that took over the EL trackage in the Decatur area, towards Huntington IN.. The EW also used the former PC track from Decatur to Portland at that same time, roughly 27 mile section. This has photos of, unfortanately how the EL appears today that I took. The ROW West of Decatur is mostly farmground again, towards Ohio City, looks more like, an abandoned railroad. Talk about a "Ghost Junction", take a look at Ohio City........ and I thought Decatur was at a loss.........

[Dave1984]

Link to YouTube, video was supposed to be attached above:    <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/EFPjo0d3W3g" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/EFPjo0d3W3g</a>

[Rich]

That is an awesome slideshow! Thanks for taking the time to share that! What a trip, the last response to my original post on this was over four years ago. It's very cool to see those old pics, but also very sad to think that the EL could just vanish like that. Oh well, I guess nothing lasts forever, not even a railroad. Rich in SW IL.

[Robert 96]

 That is a great show. So sad that it's all gone.

[Dave1984]

I know, what a disappointment, even as a teenager that I was when we lost this, it really was a waste. if you look at the one section of the EL, only a single track, East of Glenmore Ohio, the roadbed looks perfect yet, and that hasn't been used for roughly 10-12 years now, from what I understand...... The whole 40-50 mile length through this area looked like that, I used to walk different sections as a kid, it was always very well taken care of....... like someone else on here said, Santa Fe, or BNSF now could have been running double-stacks on this line.

Dave

[intermodalres]

A couple of posts up mentions a book "Erie lackawanna, the West End".  Is this the same book "in color" book by Morningsun, or is this a different book?  THe ELHS offers one of the same title, but I haven't been able to determine if it is the same.  I already have the in color book, so if this is a different one, I will definitely try to get it.  It was a bit more expensive then most books, but sometimes you can't put a price on good memories like the EL.

Jim Mihalek
Lakeville, MN

[HoosierVirg]

I have the Morning Sun book in color too and it was done by Larry DeYoung, Volume one, The West End. There are three volumes covering different sections of the EL, really nice books for covering the EL IMHO. Here is a nice 1974 map of the EL.

http://gelwood.railfan.net/el/map/el-main.gif

[IT1605]

Here is my video of the Spencerville & Elgin shortline that succeeded the EL operation.



<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/jUkb0CHCdKA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/jUkb0CHCdKA</a>



This is a tour of the Spencerville & Elgin shortline that was under the operation of RJ Corman by this time. These tracks were once the Erie Lackawanna. Our first scene is South Lima, OH, where the line crosses the CSX ex-B&O Toledo Sub and NS's ex-NKP Lima District. Note that the track jogs over to use the eastbound main.

Then we see Spencerville, OH, which has an old depot, that was once the headquarters for the SPEG. Note that the tracks in a good shape and has been had the overgrown cut back. Also, RJ Corman installed block signs at various locations along the route.

Elgin, OH is our next stop, and we see an RJ Corman GP9 sitting under the grain elevator. The we see Ohio City, and the SPEG Alco S4 and North American boxcar are gone; likely scrapped. (

[Dave1984]

That's a good video, glad you took the time back then to record this, YouTube as well for providing a source to download all these various videos. I can sit here for what ends up being hours watching these train videos, I ran across yours awhile back, interesting, thanks.

[Dave1984]

Well, so much for the Erie Lackawanna segment in Decatur. I said a couple weeks ago the crossing on U.S. 27/33 or 13th Street in Decatur was paved over, sure is, but today I noticed that they put up "tracks out of service"............... signs, that really p---'s me off, so now Decatur can no longer offer rail service to attract any "possible" industry in the future to Industrial Park. If they don't use this crossing, anything West in Industrial Park is worthless, let alone East, where it connects to the former Penn Central or CFE line that services Bunge (Central Soya) on Decatur's North side. By eliminating Industrial Park now, they may as well do away with at least 7 possibly 8 street crossing in town. CFE just eliminated segments South of Bunge, area's that used to be 4-5 tracks wide are now 2 and some area's now down to one........... sure as hell ain't what it used to be.............