Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: berea

This was on a guided tour of Berea Tower, one of Conrail's last signal towers, during its last days of operation. We saw a tremendous density of traffic by American standards, but of course that was understandable given the rail hub that the Cleveland area is. That is, indeed, why Berea survived for so long. This Conrail freight approaching us is obviously being pulled by EMD SD50s or SD60s, but the scan is unfortunately too blurry to see the numbers and confirm exactly.

I took this while on the same tour as when I took my older Berea Tower photo. I apologize for the poor resolution of the scan, but it's almost as old as the photo!

The location of this photo is at least as obvious as the one above, since it has "Berea" and Berea Tower in the picture!! Actually, the scan isn't good enough to read the sign in this shot. I'm not aware of whether this train was the same manifest as in the previous shot with the water tower, but note that the locomotive is also a G.E. Dash 8-40CW.

This train, as incredible as it may seem, appears to be a reefer express, with a lashup of old 2nd Generation diesels to match (if you count SD50s and SD60s 2nd Generation, it's not very easy to identify all the power in this photo). In actuality, there isn't any evidence that this train was a genuine reefer express, as most of it is out of the picture.

Obviously, it's not possible to get a shot like this except for when you're on an organized tour! I was, however, one of the lucky ones. This train appears to be a UP unit coal train, and it was indeed a unit coal train, but I'm more than 90% certain the power was leased by Conrail, as these were Conrail tracks in 1997. I'm not aware of UP coming this far east...ever, and UP were a common lessor to Conrail in those days. Still it makes a cool title for my photo. :-)

This shot goes with...well..."Union Pacific Coal Train From Berea Tower." This one is shot from the other end of the tower, after the head end passed, and gives us a view of the hoppers, which appear to be 49' 100-ton coal tri-hoppers.