Ohio Railfanning Odyssey 2026 [4K]

4Over Labor Day weekend in 2026, ‪@TrainNut85‬ and I set out on our much-anticipated trip to some of his old railfanning spots in Ohio. On our way up, we would make a stop in La Grange, KY along the famous street-running section in the historic downtown. We would luck out and catch two northbound trains there, CSXT L404 and CSXT I142. Afterwards, we would continue north towards Columbus where we would stop yet again for more trains. Our next spot would be at Valley Crossing in Obetz, OH where the NS Columbus District crosses the former Hocking Valley Railway at grade. We would miss one train due to having to detour for road work, but would see two more before moving up into Columbus along the Sandusky District for a shot of a classic concrete overpass with classic Pennsylvania Railroad lettering on the side. The icing on the cake was catching a train going over it. Next, we would work our way north to our hotel in Marion after seeing another train at Cooke Road just north of downtown. Shortly after checking into the hotel, we would venture over to the Marion Union Depot to see what we could catch before calling it a night. CSX would run a couple of eastbounds, one with a trio of YN2 AC44's and the other with a SD70AC leader. We would head back to the hotel shortly after to get some much-needed rest for our next day of railfanning. On the morning of September 5th, 2026, we would again venture to the Marion Depot to stake it out all morning and slightly into the afternoon. We would see 13 trains total on NS and CSX over the course of about 6 hours. One of them, NS 117, would have NS ES44AC #8184 "Altoona" on the point. One of multiple special interest locomotives we would see over the course of the weekend. After finishing up in Marion, we would head northeast to Galion and Crestline where we would see a few more trains before taking a somber stroll over to the site of the Pennsylvania Railroad's Crestline Roundhouse, where my many of my family members from my dad's side worked on steam locomotives and rail cars. Sadly, the old roundhouse was demolished in 2007 despite many efforts to save it. We would spend about 20 minutes at the site of the roundhouse before heading over to the old depot in Bucyrus for our next couple of trains. Once we got done in Bucyrus, we finished off the day in Bellevue at the Kemper Railroad Park where we would get another treat; NS #8103, the Norfolk & Western heritage unit, leading a mixed freight onto the Toledo District. We would call it a night and head to our next hotel in Findlay shortly after. The next morning, we returned to Bellevue for more action where we would get a race between two intermodals, and bag two more NS heritage units. After leaving Bellevue we would stop at Attica Junction where we would see 1074's train again and catch an eastbound CSX intermodal before breaking off for a quick lunch. One we were done with lunch, we would make a quick stop at the rail park in Fostoria and the depot in town, where we sadly wouldn't see any trains before finally deciding to finish off the day at Crossroads Park in Deshler. We would bag the Seaboard Air Line heritage unit on a stacktrain along with eight other trains before ending our day. The following morning, we would head for home after a fun and successful weekend. I hope y'all enjoy! 0:00 Intro 0:12 CSXT L404 3:09 CSXT I142 4:48 NS 271 7:12 NS 272 9:09 NS 271 again 10:25 NS 276 11:52 CSXT M332 14:06 CSXT B152 15:54 Marion, OH Depot B-Roll #1 16:40 NS 11E 17:36 NS 118 20:38 NS 171 22:41 NS 178 26:46 Marion, OH Depot B-Roll #2 27:06 CSXT M356 28:46 CSXT M275 31:29 NS 117 with NS #8184 "Altoona" Landmark Unit 33:51 NS 18M 36:34 CSXT M278 39:41 NS 28N 41:58 SB CSXT Loaded Coal Drag 43:06 CEFX 600480 (INRD 2,000,000th Carload Commemorative Hopper) 44:11 CSXT I008 46:06 NS 64W 48:09 Galion, OH Depot B-Roll 48:21 WB CSXT Mixed Freight 51:18 EB CSXT Mixed Freight 53:07 CSXT M278 again 54:47 Bucyrus Depot B-Roll 55:43 NS 277 59:09 NS 272 1:02:47 NS 19M meeting WB NS Mixed Freight with NS 8103 "Norfolk & Western" Heritage Unit 1:08:59 NS B45 1:13:07 NS 269 1:16:41 NS 259 1:21:32 NS 258 with NS 1072 "Illinois Terminal" Heritage Unit 1:25:37 NS 267 1:28:20 NS 303 1:30:40 NS 179 with NS 1074 "Delaware, Lackawanna, & Western" Heritage Unit 1:33:18 NS 179 again 1:36:34 EB CSXT Intermodal 1:39:42 CSX B642 1:43:51 CSXT I116 with CSXT 1900 "Seaboard Air Line" Heritage Unit 1:47:54 CSXT I171 1:50:28 CSXT I165 1:53:59 WB CSXT Intermodal 1:56:35 CSXT I166 1:59:08 CSXT I191 2:02:24 CSXT M510 2:05:59 CSXT I017