Vermilion Route 6 Railroad Crossing Revisited

Back in December on my post about Ohio artist Kinley Shogren, I mentioned how my condo building in Vermilion overlooks a small lake, with railroad tracks running alongside its northern shore.

The tracks run under the U. S. Route 6 highway overpass, which is directly across from my windows that face north. It makes my condo a great place to do some serious trainspotting once the leaves have all fallen.

Here's a view of my condo building from the southern end of the lake looking north. You can see the Route 6 (Liberty Avenue) overpass in the background.

Believe it or not, the proximity to the tracks has not affected my sleep. (I do have a Douni Sound Machine that I use once in a while as a sleep aid. Ironically, one of the sound choices is called “Train.”)

Anyway, it's interesting to me that I live so close to what used to be a very dangerous railroad crossing before the overpass was built. Making it even worse was the fact that the Lakeshore Electric Railway crossed the highway in the same area, making it double trouble for Route 6 motorists.

I wrote about this dangerous crossing back here in 2010.

Here’s a vintage photo of it from that post (copied from the book Lake Shore Electric Railway by Thomas J. Patton with Dennis Lamont and Albert Doane). The view is looking east. My condo building would be on the hill to the right.

And here’s the “now” shot.

And here’s something I didn’t have when I did that 2010 post: a photo of the crossing looking west. The August 1927 photo was on Ebay a few years ago.

The caption pasted on the back of the photo  reads, “Railroad brakemen are accustomed to “ducking” when their head hits the ropes that dangle over a track near a low bridge. But on the road between Lorain and Vermilion, O., it is the autoist who takes notice. The suspended ropes tell him there is a railroad crossing near.”

And here’s a “now” view of the same area, a Pit’s-eye view of the Route 6 highway overpass looking west.

Speaking of the Pit, I’ll be doing a multi-part post on it very soon!

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UPDATE (Jan. 7, 2020)
Historian and archivist Dennis Lamont has informed me that indeed there was a quarry at that site. Here's a portion of an 1896 township map (courtesy of Dennis) showing the area south of the railroad crossing as being associated with the Cleveland Stone Company.