These photos were taken while on an outing to try to find signs of life on the line. We got as far as Southern Blvd, just north of Indianola in Boardman. We found some crossings fixed around the Home Depot store, but Indianola was still under blacktop, as well as the crossing north of it. Most of our time was spent trying to find the mainline between Rogers and Columbiania. The track through there is in good shape, other than the fact it is hidden by brush. :-)
To simplify things and speed up the posting. I'm putting a couple of images per page, without thumbnails. What you see is what you get.
First of all, this photo is actually a composite of three or four photos, stitched together to create a panorama. It's kind of wide, but I didn't want to shrink any of it. I took this this past winter, so it's kind of drab. But here are the Negley shops in all their glory. Not much has changed in the past few years. The only thing missing is the water tower that used to stand somewhere behind the close shed and to the right in this photo. I have a photo that includes the tower, It's been scanned, and can be viewed here or here.
Just a couple of miles east of these shops, you can find this cut Just behind where I'm standing to take this photo,
the track is covered by pavement, and is quite out of gauge.
Just after taking this picture, we crossed the bridge next to it, and drove up into the state game lands. I wanted to see the pond where I used to go fishing. While at the pond, we noticed a lot of beaver activity, and decided to walk a little into the woods. While walking on this "road", which is actually a rutted path, I realized this road was something more. What we were walking on was the right-of-way for an old branch line for the Y&S that used to run to the strip mine that was once located where the game lands presently are. (In fact, you can read more about this mine by clicking here. The description and photo are about midway down the page.) We ended up following the right-of-way for a little while on foot, and then by car. It was surprising what you could see, once you knew it was there. What was more astounding was what has completely disappeared! One could hardly tell that there had ever been a strip mine in this location, and certainly that it was the size of operation that it was.