(The following column by Ken Lahmers appeared on the Aurora Advocate website on June 17, 2009.)
AURORA, Ohio — Rail fans take note! If you enjoy trains — whether they be from years ago or the present — the city of Bellevue, Ohio, is a wonderful place to visit.
I did just that May 16, and how appropriate to reach the town of 8,200 people on the border of Huron and Sandusky counties by rail.
I rode in one of eight passenger cars on the spring excursion offered by the Orrville Railroad Heritage Society. It was the first time since 1988 the group sponsored a trip to Bellevue.
The ORHS had to cancel its Orrville to Pittsburgh trip, which I took last spring, because it could not get trackage rights for a 12-mile stretch in Harrison County that was acquired by another railway in 2008.
But the replacement trip on the Wheeling & Lake Erie main line was an enjoyable alternative, and included two hours at the Mad River & Nickel Plate Railroad Museum.
Not only was the museum a pleasure, the live train activity near it was a rail fan’s delight, as several trains crawled by on four connecting tracks between main lines.
You see, Bellevue is home to a large Norfork Southern hump yard — one of the largest in the state. It’s situated just to the northeast of town, and trains come and go every few minutes.
Five NS main lines run through the city — northeast to Cleveland, northwest to Toledo, north to Sandusky, south to Columbus and southwest to Lima.
W&LE’s main line, the one we traveled on, runs southeast to Mingo Junction in Jefferson County along the Ohio River. It once extended to Toledo, but NS now controls that stretch.
On the 140-mile roundtrip, which departed from Orrville at 8:30 a.m., we passed through Smithville, Creston, Lodi, Spencer, Wellington, Clarksfield, Norwalk and deboarded at Monroeville.
We were taken by bus about 5 miles into Bellevue. We picked up about 100 passengers at Lodi, where a group trying to restore a 100-year-old W&LE depot offered tickets as a fundraiser.
The railroad museum
The museum is just two or three blocks south of downtown, and was opened in 1976 as a bicentennial project.
Henry Flagler, who built the Florida East Coast Railroad, once lived on the property.
The name comes from the Mad River & Lake Erie Railroad, one of the earliest lines that ran through Bellevue in 1839, and the Nickel Plate Road, once owned by the VanSweringen brothers, builders of Cleveland’s Terminal Tower.
The main line of the Nickel Plate, formerly known as the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, ran along the coast of Lake Erie and down through Bellevue.
The firm took over the old Wheeling & Lake Erie lines through Ohio in 1949, and became part of the Norfork & Western in 1964.
The museum has several pieces of rolling stock — locomotives, cabooses, box cars, a tank car and even a military sleeper car from World War II.
Some of the box cars and cabooses contain displays of railroad photos, uniforms, timetables, lanterns, rail maps and even china.
Visitors have the opportunity to walk into the cabs and sit in the engineer’s seats of locomotives such as the early 1950s Wabash F7A diesel, RSD-12 and GP30.
The former Curtis station, once located northeast of Chardon, has been moved to the museum grounds and set up to look like an authentic 1930s-40s depot.
There are a heating stove in the center of the waiting room, two bar-covered ticket windows and a small office containing vintage office equipment.
Across the street and the NS tracks is more rolling stock, including a B&O wagon-top caboose (a style minus a cupola) and a former New York Central freight station.
A beautiful old church is situated on the north side of the museum grounds.
One of the museum people told me a private citizen bought the building a couple of years ago and wants to convert it into “a vacation home.”
Other Bellevue sights
Although we didn’t visit any other attractions in Bellevue, I found some listed on the Internet.
Historic Lyme Village is at Routes 4 and 113. It is similar to Century Village in Burton, with a number of old structures such as a church, schoolhouse, homes and a post office.
Seneca Caverns, one of Ohio’s largest underground caverns, are nearby. They were discovered in 1872 by two boys and were opened to the public in 1933.
The 120-acre Sorrowful Mother Shrine on Route 269 south was founded in 1850 and is the oldest place of pilgrimage dedicated to Mary in the Midwest.
Bellevue was founded in 1815 by a group of settlers from Genesee County, N.Y. The Ohio Cultivator Co. was one of the town’s famous businesses, having moved there in 1886.
The ride on the rails
Much of the route along the W&LE main line is flat farm country. We could see stands of wheat starting to grow and tilled fields with corn that hadn’t poked out of the ground yet.
There is a large grain elevator along the tracks at Clarksfield, adjacent to which the W&LE has a small yard. Another grain facility is along the tracks in Spencer.
Riding with me was an engineer for WKSU radio station and a couple — the husband is a firefighter — from Newark, Ohio, where I lived from 1981 to 1984.
I was delighted to talk about Newark and ask the couple what things are like there now. I hope to visit the Licking County seat later this year for the first time in 25 years.
The couple said they woke up at 4:45 a.m. for the drive to Orrville. They decided to dine at The Barn in Smithville on their way home, after I told them how fantastic it is.
The eight passenger cars and a gift shop/concessions car were pulled by ORHS’s blue GP7 locomotive, along with an orange and black W&LE loco.
The ORHS offers two or three rail excursions each year. They are a relaxing treat for railroad lovers.
The next excursion will be the Medina Loop, which I took last year. It starts in Orrville and travels through Navarre, Canton, Hartville, Mogadore, Akron, Copley, Medina, Spencer, Lodi and Creston.
Information about the society and its trips can be found at www.orrvillerailroad.com.