Railfanning NS & CSX At Berea, OH

My original plan was to get up super early to drive out to Toledo to do a night photo of Amtrak's Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited then take a drive down to Deshler, OH to get in some railfanning. This would end up not happening because Northwest Ohio got an absolutely soaking rain overnight so that put the kibosh on that trip. I figured there's no sense in risking losing an expensive digital camera in the rain!!! I decided to take a drive east and go visit one of the hottest railfanning spots in Northeast Ohio…BEREA!!!! Berea is a junction between the CSX main (Former Conrail/New York Central "Big Four" line) and the NS (Former New York Central) Chicago line. The rain would eventually make its way to Berea and I did railfan with an umbrella for a bit before leaving. I stayed there 2 1/2 hours and managed to see 11 trains, not bad!!! Shown here, are photos I took while visiting Berea!

Berea Union Depot, a former New York Central station now sits vacant with its last tenant being a restaurant.

Pullman Club Car #1927 - Berean. This car is a former Pennsylvania Railroad Club Car known as "The Rotary Club" owned by
Ellis & Frank Lovell. This car may have been part of the now-defunct restaurant that used to be in the depot.

The first train today snuck up on me, with CSX ES44DC #5484 leading a couple Iowa, Chicago & Eastern units
on the old New York Central Big Four Line.

Berea Tower, which now sits on Norfolk Southern property. This tower stands guard over this interlocking at CP-194 on the NS
(Former New York Central) Chicago Line. Here we have westbound NS Train 261 with Ex-Conrail SD60I #6760 leading.

A closer view of the tower looking towards the west.

Another view of the tower looking towards the east. I like that NS Cleveland Terminal poster on the building!

A Sperry Rail Service track inspector hi-rail truck doing some inspecting of the NS Chicago Line.

Heading east on the Big Four is CSX Train K-682 with Union Pacific SD70M #4519 on the lead.

C40-8W #7772 leads westbound Train Q-377 past a NYC-style 3 light signal. Note the difference in the new signals on the
NS against the classing NYC style signal. I personally prefer the NYC signals better. The lawn tractor seen in a few of the
photos was from the City Of Berea as they own the land here and mow the lawn accordingly.

CSX ES44AC #832 leads westbound manifest Train S-351 on the Big Four.

BNSF SD70M #9722 leads NS Train 145 on the Chicago Line heading west.

Hot westbound CSX Train Q-163 with SD70MAC #4559 passing by Berea Tower on the Big Four.

NS Train 244 with ES40DC #7707 leading a string of Triple Crown road-railers on the Chicago Line!

Another eastbound NS stack train approaches the tower on the Chicago Line with former Conrail C40-8W #8320.

Westbound CSX manifest Train Q-393 heads west with ES44AC #942 on the head end.

Finally, eastbound CSX manifest Train Q-364 with ES44DC #5465 moves along the Big Four. That's All Folks!

Berea is quite a popular place for railfanning! I talked to several other railfans who were there including one from Kansas! After leaving Berea, I had lunch at a nearby mall then drove back to Sandusky to pick up some supplies for the next leg of the trip. I decided to turn in the rental car a little early as I no longer needed it as opposed to leaving it overnight at Enterprise and dropping the keys in the safe. I was driven back to my hotel by Enterprise and did laundry and ate some delivered pizza and wings from Domino's. The pizza was decent but the wings were another story! If you're gonna make "Buffalo Wings", you really need to fry them, and I think these were baked! After dinner, I watched American Chopper: Senior Vs. Junior, one of my favorite shows and continued writing this travelogue. I then would eventually call it a day. My time in Sandusky was very well spent this year but it was now time to move on to the rest of the trip. Its now time to head to Chicago on Amtrak's Capitol Limited, please read on...