Life and Times of a urban railfan

           I know it has been a while since my last post, to be honest with you I just have been busy with work and other things that has kept me from the tracks. During my unwanted sabbatical I managed to get a few minutes in with the trains. The first being when I went on a fishing trip with our family ( this was a wanted trip by the way, not to be included in the unwanted sabbatical) during that trip we crossed a set of tracks belonging to the Wheeling and Lake Erie and I heard a train on the scanner as we packed up to head home. I figured that the train would be by us by the time we got to the crossing, but that would prove me wrong as I approached the crossing I looked out the window and saw the train about a quarter of a mile away. Stopping the van on the other side of the tracks I grabbed my camera and ran  back toward the tracks (this has been a little easier since I have been walking and losing some poundage) with only seconds to compose the shot I managed to get this pictur

A CSX auto rack runs through South Akron in a scene similar to what I saw as a kid          I was flipping through the April edition of Railfan and Railroad magazine the other  day and in one of the commentaries it was basically put that railfanning is one form of a persons work and entertainment for others. I can relate to this for the most part from the perspective of being entertained by the immensity and power of the motive power and the freight cars that are moved across the country everyday. It began with the walks me and my dad would take up to the end of the street while walking our dog, if we heard a train horn blowing for South street ( I was to young to know this at the time) we would wait and in a few minutes here we would see a train emerge from under the Main Street bridge and I would be treated to seeing a train. Over the years on various occasions I would go out with my dad not really railfanning but he would go to places there would be a probability of seeing on