Indiana & Ohio Fantrip

When I replaced my desktop, I also got a new printer-scanner, since my old one had died a year or so ago. This got me back to scanning old photos. One set I'd put off scanning, since I'd forgotten both the dates and the specific places they were taken. With some web research, I've been able to reconstruct at least part of what was involved.

The now-defunct Three Rivers Narrow Gauge Historical Society covered narrow gauges in the watersheds of the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela Rivers. This included large parts of upstate New York, western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. This was a very good group of dedicated, serious, but very friendly people. However, the group stopped holding meetings or publishing its magazine maybe 15 years ago.

The annual get-togethers were in the territory covered, and they were some of the best technical and historical conventions I've ever attended. At the time, I was getting free airline miles from company travel, so it wasn't hard for me to make them.

The photos below are from one of their annual meetings, held along the former narrow gauge Cincinnati, Lebanon, and Northern Railroad, which was standard gauged in 1891 and taken over by the PRR. With Conrail, the remaining lines under Penn Central were variously abandoned and parceled out. The line from Lebanon to Mason and Monroe went to the Indiana & Ohio in the 1990s, but a short segment of line was owned by the Town of Lebanon, but beginning in 1988, the Indiana & Ohio operated a tourist train over that segment.

At the time I rode, the loco was still lettered for the Indiana & Ohio, but I think operation of the line had already been spun off to a different operator. The GP7 I shot then still operates on this train, but it's been repainted for the Lebanon, Mason, & Monroe tourist operator.

The coaches are former DL&W electric trailers. It would not surprise me if I'd ridden on the exact cars when I was a kid growing up in Chatham.

The trip covered the whole length of the line operated for freight (and still operated by I&O under GWI). The tourist operation does not normally run the whole length. The infrastructure is something remarkable in this day and age. This is what well-maintained secondary track looked like under PRR and PC.

This is the back of an original standard PRR crossbuck.

I don't know the exact date or year of this trip. If any visitor can help, please let me know! I think it may have been in the early 2000s.