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Berea Trainwatching TipsWelcome Visitors!
Visiting railfans always are welcome at Berea. If you have never been here -- or have not been here recently -- these are some tips to help you enjoy your stay. We want you, and all railfans, to be safe and enjoy their time at Berea. You'll usually find several "regulars" trackside who will be happy to answer your questions and provide information.Please click on any of the topics, below, to go to the full item: Getting Here:This can get a little complicated in 2008-10 when the long-needed Front St. bridge is built over the NS and CSX tracks. Assuming that bidding is done this Spring, the heavy construction work is expected to start late this year and last well into 2010. Please see, below, for the latest information that we have on this project. We'll provide more details here once we get a clearer picture of the construction work. We have heard reports that NS is going to do some major track and signal rebuilding at Berea while the bridge work is in progress. Some of the signal work may begin this Spring, as the parts have been sitting near the tower since last fall. As we understand it, the west-facing signal for Track 1 beyond the tower, and the east-facing gantry for Tracks 2 and 4 and "endangered species" and slated for replacement.
Parking:There are two parking places regularly used by railfans.
Food & Beverage (and "Facilities")You might consider visiting The Station Restaurant for lunch or dinner. The food and service are good, the prices are reasonable, and doing so will help show the management that we appreciate their allowing railfans park in their lot. (And they have a "killer" Sunday brunch from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) Click here for The Station Restaurant's web site. Fast-food restaurants are located north of the tracks on Front Street and west of the tracks area on Bagley Road. Unfortunately, there are no "facilities" readily available to railfans, other than visiting one of the restaurants or gas stations. Two Simple Requests:There are two simple but important requests for all railfans -- both visitors and "regulars" -- at Berea to help keep the area available to everyone.
Scanner Frequencies:These are the radio frequencies for your scanner
while at Berea:
CSX "IF"
Dispatcher - Berea-Crestline - 160.485
CSX "IF" Dispatcher - Berea-Crestline - 160.860
CSX Columbia Detector - 160.860 (A little hard to hear)
CSX "IG" Dispatcher - Berea-Collinwood - 160.800
CSX "IG" Dispatcher - Collinwood - 160.995
NS
Cleveland Terminal Dispatcher - 161.070 NS
Rockport Yardmasters - 161.070 and 160.350 (160.350 sometimes is NS Toledo East Dispatcher - 160.980 NS Olmsted Falls Detector - 160.980
Berea Tower Boarded Up!In February, 2006, NS workers boarded up most of the windows on both floors of the closed Berea Tower. The only windows left unboarded are two at the southeast end which are in the signal maintainers' office area. The board-up was done for security because of leaks in the windows which let rain and snow into the building, as well as to prevent vandalism. We were sorry to see this happen, but NS needs to protect the building, and the electronics which it still contains, from further damage. We hope that NS eventually will send a crew back to paint the window boards.
A Brief Berea Rail History:Berea has been a major factor on the Cleveland railroad scene since the mid-1860s when several predecessors of the New York Central System (NYC) laid their tracks on roughly the same alignment as what you see today. The Berea Union Depot, now The Station Restaurant, dates from 1878 and was the city's passenger station until 1958. Depot Street was not a through street until the late 1960s; originally it ended at the depot and at St. Mary's Cemetery. The area west of the depot, including most of the present street, contained a freight house, a team track, a yard serving local industries, and a yard for the spur which ran down to the Berea sandstone quarries, now Baldwin and Wallace Lakes in the Metropark. At one time Berea had two towers, one near Front St., the other at the west end. Two steam engines were regularly kept at Berea to protect the passenger services; if a train needed help, one of these engines was sent to assist. Berea, today, is at least the third rebuilding of the interlocking which was done in the late 1950s, with some modification in 1999. At the height of the NYC, later PennCentral, the "Chicago Line"-- today's NS route -- had four tracks. The inner pair (Tracks 1 and 2) were for high- speed passenger and freight trains, and the outer pair (now cut back to Track 4 and the North Controlled Siding) were for regular freight and slower passenger trains. CSX's "Columbus Line" is the ex-NYC "Big Four Route," and originally was the main passenger route from Cleveland Union Terminal (CUT). It had three tracks through Berea Depot, and two tracks west of there, but in the late 1970's Conrail reduced these to a single track (CSX Track 1). CSX reinstalled Track 2 as part of the 1999 Conrail breakup. At one time high-speed crossovers west of the depot connected the "Chicago" and "Big Four" lines for passenger trains in and out of the Berea Depot and CUT. Berea Tower closed in 1997 and its functions were transferred to Conrail's, now NS', dispatching center in Dearborn, MI, which controls the "Chicago Line" with NS "Cleveland Terminal" and "Toledo East" dispatchers, as well as some local control from Rockport Yard. CSX dispatches the "Columbus Line" and the "Short Line" dispatching from its Indianapolis center - CSX "IF" and "IG" Dispatchers. The tower's first floor contains electronic control equipment for signals and switches. NS signal maintainers use the second floor as their office. NS boarded up the tower in early 2006 because of water leakage and for security. In the NYC/PC/CR days, there were frequent crossover moves, controlled by the Berea Tower operator between the "Chicago" and "Big Four" lines. Since the Conrail breakup NS and CSX infrequently use the "Toledo Connection," usually when there are track work, derailments, problems, or special moves involved. The "Big Four Connection" sees a Wheeling & Lake Erie coke train (708/707) to or from Arcelor Mittal Steel in the "Flats" six days a week -- Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays eastbound; Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays westbound. NS' Rockport Yard, visible from I-480 just east of the airport, is its main Cleveland yard, from where NS trains run across the Lakefront to reach the former Pennsylvania RR route to Pittsburgh and the east. CSX's main yard is Collinwood on Cleveland's northeast side, reached via the "Short Line," east of Berea, paralleling I-480, and then turning northeast past University Circle. Berea is "CP 194" on NS -- 194 miles from Buffalo because NS uses the former NYC mileage measurements on the "Chicago Line." On CSX Berea is "MP 21.5", based on the mileage from Collinwood Yard via CUT. An average of 160 trains a day -- weighted a little more to NS than to CSX -- pass through Berea. NS' activity is fairly steady throughout the day, while CSX tends to fleet eastbounds in the morning, westbound in the afternoon.
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