Bessemer Part I
Finally – after weeks of waiting, I was off to Bessemerland. Several friends knew that I was headed for Ohio. They asked if I would be visiting Deshler, Fostoria, and Berea. I told them that they would have to wait and see. In reality, I had bigger fish to fry.
I have always heard the call of the Bessemer and Lake Erie, ever since I saw the gorgeous Orange and Black in the hills of Pennsylvania, I knew I had to go and visit.
A sense of severe urgency was added to my cause when Canadian National came out of the woodwork and gobbled up the Great Lakes Transportation Company, B&LE included. Having seen what they did to Wisconsin Central and Illinois Central, the desire to head for the hills of Pennsylvania was greater than ever. After a few false starts, I finally got down to Greenville, home of the B&LE shops, on the 25 of February.
For my patience and devotion, I was rewarded with a southbound scrap train. Boo hiss, I wanted a coal train, but I’ll settle for what I can get.
Along the way Grandpa, Grandma, and I encountered nearly every road hazard known to man. Funeral processions, trucks losing their loads, school zones, flooded creeks, crappy dirt roads, erratic drivers, one-way streets (more than you can shake a stick at), log trucks, chuckholes, bridge-outs, roads on the map that turned out to be driveways, roads on the map that were really creeks, blind hills, no-left-turns, school buses, construction zones, Amish buggies, floods, and ninety year old drivers hindered my progress.
My carefully laid plans were blown to smithereens when it became apparent that the Bessemer was no poke-a-long railroad. The scrap train managed to outrun us due to the above stated road hazards, and at times we were running at 80 m.p.h.
Sad to say, I returned with two decent pictures. Not one to give up, I demanded that we return on the 27th.
The photographs are presented below and on the following page with a minimum of narration so that they may speak for themselves.Kremis, Pennsylvania:
Spring Mills, Pennslyvania:
