OCS, Conrail Style

[E.M. Bell]

Back before the CR/NS/CSX merger, I had only a handful of chances to get out and shoot big blue. Most of these where just by chance while up in Ohio or PA, and most of the time I could have cared less...I was a Southern Man. CR was just another one of those "Yankee" RR' s you read about in the rail mags.

Looking back now, Im glad I have what little CR material that I have. Some of the best memories was the time or Two I got to shoot the OCS (Office car Specials). In a time when most of the Class 1's would just slap any old power on some passenger cars, CR took the trouble to run a matched set of E8's with its buisness train, a great sight .  I have been digging again through the mountains of little yellow slide boxes, and have dredged up a few. Somewhere around here, I have more.. Click the thumbs for a bigger pic..and there is a link to a special treat at the bottom.

The Northbound OCS crosses the Miami river near Dayton Ohio, 1992



Somehwere near Enon Ohio



After the Merger, the 4022 is stored on the CSX at Huntington Wv. Soon, should would be running again in Pennsy paint for the Levin's.



I shot a lot of video on some of these trips. Here is a sound bite from one of those...Ill set the scene. We are in (new??) London Ohio, just outside of Columbus. A heavy summer storm is on top of us, lots of rain and thunder, as the OCS passes by at 60mph.. 956k, click the link below to listen. This is one of my favorite sound clips I made..

http://jreb.org/sounds/crstorm.wav

[ccaranna]

Awesome stuff!  Sound clip is just icing on the cake.  

Those E8's sure went around the block a few times, that's for sure.  They saw a lot of good times, and some pretty bad times, too.  It was something special that Conrail fixed them up they the way they did.  The Pennsy Brunswick green was nice, but I would have prefered the Tuscan red.  Oh well.