Tracks of the Old NYC, Volume 3

Witness the hot-spot of Berea weeks after the Conrail split date of June 1st 1999. Berea is no longer a one railroad town, it now has 2 parallel mains, NS and CSX. Between the 2 railroads over 100 trains a day pass through, up from about 80 in Conrail days. See action on the old New York Central Water Level Route from warm summer weather at Berea Ohio in 1999, to frigid winter weather in upstate New York in 2000 which created challenges and great embarrassment to this videographer as you will see.

The Berea action features many NS, CSX, Conrail, Amtrak, Wisconsin Central, UP, and BNSF locomotives. CSX ran many trains as well as NS, but on this day the Cleveland Drawbridge was out of service so NS trains were running on the new CSX main, a most unusual sight to see here. CSX was short of power so you see a lot of foreign power on their trains. At this time CSX and NS were using Conrail symbols on the radio but Tim preferred to identify the trains with their new CSX and NS symbols.

The winter scenes were captured in January 2000 on CSX’s busy line between the Rochester NY. and Buffalo NY. area which is a snow belt region. Lots of fast trains kicking up the snow are seen which should put one in the Christmas spirit. From the videographer: It’s the coldest weather I have ever rail-fanned in, and it wasn’t easy as I had a little Automobile mishap which AAA corrected. Embarrassment and a bit less money in my wallet were the worst of it thankfully. Don’t miss this 2-Hour action packed video tour of Summer and Winter scenes in 1999 and 2000!