My blog posts about the Lorain City Airport are still generating some nice emails and photos from readers, who have been kind enough to grant me permission to post them here.
The photo at left (click on it for a closer look) is from local historian and archivist Dennis Lamont, who has helped me out on several occasions (such as providing the vintage aerial photo of Lorain that solved my Gregg/Foote House mystery).
As Dennis related, the photo is of the Lake Shore Electric wood coach #149, shown at the Lorain City Airport in 1964. The photo is looking north towards the hangar. Leavitt Road would be to the right of the photo.
Apparently this car's history is very well documented. According to Dennis, #149 was disassembled in Sandusky in 1938, and from there was trucked to a bar in Birmingham, then to the Lorain City Airport, then to Paul Eckler's Farm outside of Norwalk, then to Delta, Ohio, then to Lions Park near Sylvania and then to its final resting place (which I'll reveal at the end of this post).
The great Arcadia Publishing Lake Shore Electric Railway book (by Dennis Lamont, Thomas J. Patton and Albert Doane) includes this photo of #149 with the following caption. "Car No. 149, one of the "big" Niles cars, was extended to 60 feet in 1923 so it could handle the large passenger loads necessary to work the Cleveland-to-Lorain runs and school bus runs. The Cleveland-to-Lorain operation was the most profitable service ever handled by LSE, and it was profitable right to the end of the line."
And if you're looking for more online information about the Lake Shore Electric Railway, be sure to drop by Drew Penfield's Lake Shore Rail Maps website.
Thanks again to Dennis Lamont for the great photo.
And I'm not through with the airport yet – the photos's are still a-coming in!
Another thing I had forgotten about! I stuck my head in both of those trailers long before we were "allowed" to cross Leavitt Road with some of the other boys from tne neighborhood. A hobo was said to live in one of them so we were scared. He was apparently not too squeamish about using the facilities for what they were worth. I can tell you that one of the ones we looked into needed some serious cleaning. It seems to me that the gray one sat there for a couple of years after the airport closed. Now I'm remembering what an eyesore that airport was!
ReplyDeleteAt first, the photo of the two railcars looked only vaguely familiar to me. But then in my mind's eye, I saw them from the Leavitt Road 'drive-by' angle---and then I finally remembered them!
ReplyDeleteThe gray color trailer ended up way,way back behind the airport in area I used to call the airport dump.I found many interesting things back there!
ReplyDeleteIf you are wondering about ANY aspect of the LSE, or of things involving railroads in Lorain County in general, Dennis Lamont is THE man to ask.
ReplyDeleteHe's a really great guy and a literal font of information on the subject of local railroads, and so much more.