I guess I'm the first one to get home from a great (short for me) weekend of railfanning. Now I am somewhat of a newbie to the hardcore railfanning, but IMHO I must say that Deshler, Ohio has to be the coolest place on earth for railfanning. I mean you can park a camper there for crying out loud and nobody hassels you. More rail traffic than this humble new foamer has ever seen in one day. The town of Deshler put on a Railroad and Heritage Days this weekend. Complete with railfanning, slide shows, layout displays, swap meet, motorcycle run and best of all, a pig roast! I had an excellent time. Great town, great friends and great food. I want to thank Brian and his friends for hosting Johnny Trains, edtrains and myself and showing us the area. After spending the morning watching trains in Deshler. Brian took us to Fostoria! More tracks running in different directions than this humble new foamer has ever seen in one place. 6 trains in 1/2 hour? I mean COME ON! Does it get any better than that? Yes, I suppose it would if the railroad police went on strike . Even when I started for home I saw 4 trains in a 1/2 hour span between Deshler and Fostoria along Rt 18. JT and et. I hope you had a safe journey home! With only 4 hours sleep in the last 24, I found myself dangerously tired on the drive home last night, but I did make it OK. OBTW, I saw those UP units re-fueling at the Euclid service facility about 11PM last night. The railfanning half of me wanted to exit and photopraph them. The more sensible, tired half of me kept the hammer down......
Glad to see you liked Deshler! Since you're so close I expect to see you back on a regular basis! :-D
Well, The Great Deshler RR Day (24Aug02) has come and gone but the memories are forever. MANY THANKS to Johnny Trains for putting this meeting together and getting all of us there at about the same time. YOU DID GOOD JT. Also thanks to Brian for his detailed knowledge of the trains. tracks and freqs. Herman ze German (Warren) provided allaround good company and kept things light and fun. Gordon, the font of information, was our people photog.........he took pix of people taking pix of trains. The weather is always a factor in these outings. The day started with a good rainshower. Ed accused JT of jinxing the weather every time he traveled to Ohio from Manahttan (NYC). Of course it was all in jest and good fun. The weather was nearly ideal. The temp hovered around 80 degrees all day with very high humidity, of course. The sun was out or nearly out most of the day. I can tell you that the recent "derailment" did some major damage to the brick station. The station had a hole in the side big enough to drive a truch through. The tower is a beautiful brick structure. There is plenty of action... though not continuous. As with any railroading, traffic tends to run in spurts. There were a number of moves on the turnout tracks with the most frequent moves being from westbound to southbound and northbound to eastbound. These turnout tracks are really tight and the trains creep through them. On the other hand, the trains going straight through the diamonds tend to "let 'er rip". Speeds of 40 mph were common across the diamonds. You had to choose your moment for a pic and snap it quickly.........no second chances at these speeds. The five of us took a little side trip to Fostoria, about half an hour east of Deshler. There is plenty of action at Fostioria but it is more spread out than Deshler. Consequently, you often will be out of postion for a good shot of a train. Another negative at Fostoria is that the local gendarmes will chase you off several of the good spots for shooting pix. Probably the best shooting spot is the parking lot opposite the Amtrak station. Back at Deshler, several of us decided to attempt to cross the track at an "unauthorized" location. An unmarked sport ute drove slowly our way and the driver gave us the "finger" pointing away from the track we were attempting to cross. We heeded his warning and marched to the rear... He slowly drove towards us, stopped and gave us a polite, but stern, warning about not being within the diamonds. Nuff said. We took the long route to the road crossing, feeling chastened and weary from the long walk to the road crossing. What's a rail outing without a little excitement? We closed up shop and went our separate ways a bit past 8pm. Several of us had trips of 3 hours or more before we arrived home and could collapse into our beds. Watch this spot for a few of the thousands of pictures that we took on Saturday. Again, THANKS JOHNNY!!! for your sterling organizing efforts. Thanks to all the others who were there. Toottoot, Edtrain
Let's see if this link to a couple of my photos works... http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/buck_1040/lst?.dir=/My+Photos/Deshler&.src=ph&.view=t Just checked the link. It works. This is access to the Deshler Photo Album. You can view the pix several ways once you link into the album. Edtrain [ 26. August 2002, 06:35: Message edited by: Edtrain ]
Wow, where do I begin here? Well, 11 hours on the road today at 75 mph most of the way can make one a wee bit tired but I will as always comment on a wonderful experience! Thank God I am home also. I also got deathly ill from an allergic reaction to something I ate and spent some hellish hours the night I arrived in Ohio (Wed night), and was in bed until Friday morning, before I took my daughter to school and met the guys the next day. HOW I MADE IT IS BEYOND ME! I also had to make ten trips up 3 flights of stairs with the kid's stuff........in 90 degree heat and high humidity! First, thanks Ed for those nice comments! I am always glad when my Trainboard Compadres can get together with me! I was tired of railfanning Ohio for the last 15 years alone. You guys are Top Shelf and have made it a new and great experience! Ed turned me on to Cincy, and Brian has turnd me onto a place where railfans think they have died and gone to railfan heaven!!!!!!!!!!! (Ed, Cincy is the tease just outside the Pearly Gates! LOL! "Maybe we'll let ya in and you can live at Deshler forever and ever"........sigh.) Ed met me at the mall in Piqua Saturday morning, and while waiting for him, an antique car show was setting up 20 feet away from me and a train passed by just behind me. This was cool for the beginning of the day. Another train was going by just as Ed got there! It also started to rain. I bring rain. (Cincy, Sand Patch, Piqua............). I'm hiring myself out to towns with droughts. No rain in Deshler but the strangest weather I ever saw. Wait 10 minutes and it went from cool to humid, sunny to cloudy, windy to not, Summer to Fall. Looks like rain but ten seconds later the sun is blinding! LOL! We followed Brian's directions and suddenly in front of us was this mecca of tracks, railfans, tents, huge grills......a wild scene! We parked right where we were surrounded by tracks! Warren was the first person we saw and when asked how long he had been there he had said about 45 minutes, and when asked how many trains he saw he said......."Oh. 8!!!!!!!!!!!" Brian came right away and I was immediately impressed that he knew everyone and they knew him! Trains came right away too! He showed us the layout of the area and told us not to trespass, which we did anyway later in the day and got scolded by some railroad cop. He was a great host and took us over to the model railroad layout which was really nice, took us into the local Historical Society which was neat and had a bunch of N Trak Modules set up that were very impressive too! He showed us where to eat and as we all walked down the main street, about 300 to 400 bikers were led by a police escort as they made a Make A Wish Foundation Run! What a cool scene! They were all waving and we were waving back and cheering and suddenly about half of them got cut off by a train and that made it even more interesting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those big old burly middle aged bikers (I'm talking about the women!) really tugged at my heart strings. God Bless America! Brian left us to eat as he was trying to cover many bases. We got back to our spot which is a railfans paradise because you can park and have shelter and trains on all sides within just feet of you! As Ed said, they range from a slow crawl to a good clip. One right after the other........you can see them lined up liked planes in the night heading into a busy airport. Headlight after headlight! Also, the wye tracks were rounded off so much that they looked more like pipes than rails!!!!!!!! Also, there is such an abundance of mixed freight to watch! Brian also took us to Fostoria which was amazing too. We saw quite a few movements in the hour or so we were there. Many off a little to far away to run after. There was a guy from Michigan there with a '36 Chevy heading to a car show, and stopped to watch trains! One road Brain took us on took us under 3 consecutive railroad bridges just feet apart from one another. One for the Pennsey, Nickel Plate and B&O! I was born in the wrong place and the wrong time. I want to come back there in 1940 in my next life. We returned to Deshler and we all forgot about the parade and I missed the fire engines. Well, I did see them from a distance! We ate pork and beans and had a blast watching the die hard railfans with videos going, camera lined up all over, people selling nice model railroad stuff under the shelter and so much other good stuff. It was a day to remember! Some guy had a video link to the CTC Board that covered Deshler!!!!!!!!!! Now that's intense!!!!!! Even as Ed and I were leaving, headlights dotted the distance! WARREN: Thanks again for Sand Patch and Deshler and I hope we can do this again in October if I can spare a day away from the family, although it will be the first time I'll see the kid since Friday......... Wish I could get out your way but that's a real haul from Western Ohio. ED: Buddy, your the greatest! Thanks for bring Arlo along with us. "KID!!!!!!!" BRIAN: Thanks again and I swear I will try to come up there every time I come to Ohio! And one last thing, is a fellow named Gordon, who is Brian's friend. Here's a young fellow that is only 21, looks younger, seems rather shy until he gets to know you, is a professional photographer, a computer genius and all around good kid. He talked over our heads about computers at least making me feel like I belong in an antique store's window. Gordy, it was a pleasure to meet you! And as I said, if ya'll ever come to NYC there's a nice hotel up the street and I would try to show you the diverse railroading here in the City. It ain't Deshler but it's a nice selection of different things. Ciao! And I had a great time! OH! Ed, I went back to the mall on Sunday morning and saw two southbounds within 10 minutes of each other!!!!!!!!!
LOL.. Glad to see I seemed to have made a good impression on everybody.. I will definitely have to go railfanning again in the future.. I should have some KILLER shots in my gallery by this weekend, courtesy of Deshler, OH... That town.. I swear I love trains, but I don't know how anybody sleeps around there.. =) It was a pleasure meeting you all.. -Gordon --- My homepage: http://gordon.bamfware.com My site: http://photography-addicts.bamfware.com My gallery: http://photography-addicts.bamfware.com/gallery/HexHacker
Well guys it is so good reading about your trip. It seems you had a fantastic time and some real friendships are being made. Gordon welcome to Trainboard, i look forward to seeing your shots of the weekend.
Brian, just wanted to let you know my Deshler tee shirt was a big hit at work today. Someone said, "'STAFF', HUH". I said, "Hey, I KNOW people........." Then I gave them the old Soprano's type nod.
I wanted to confirm an item I read. Is it true that the station had a hole knocked through one wall? If so, what wall? Thanks, Mark [ 17. September 2002, 20:01: Message edited by: cmstpmark ]
Dear Brian, One line is fine. I'm a minimalist myself. Thank you for the information. I'll have to take a drive down before something else happens. I am glad I got the architectural shots of the depot that I did two years ago. Thanks again, Mark
Drop me a line before you come and I'll meet you down there and show you the local (railroad) sights.
