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Ohio Central Railroad
The sound you are hearing is the Ohio Central's #1551
The Ohio Central Railroad was at one time ran daily trains out of Sugarcreek, Ohio. Sugarcreek
is located about one and one-half hours south of Cleveland in the heart of Amish country.The
railroad still runs a couple of special trains out of Sugarcreek and out of Dennison but has
pretty much become a casualty of the increasing insurance costs plaguing the steam excursion
industry since September 11. They ran daily trains six days a week for fifteen years but
abruptly ended operations on May 24, 2003. I was fortunate enough to make a quick trip
to be on their last train. The mood was quite sad. The Ohio Central owns many steam
locomotives and if I'm not mistaken, owns more than any other steam outfit in the country.
They ran about a one hour excursion through Amish country almost mirroring the SRC.
I have not lost hope for them, though. After saying they were done with steam operations,
they made public a slimmed down special schedule featuring their money train, the 6325.
They have also very recently (Oct.2,2003) picked-up a new addition from the Hocking Valley
Something must be cooking! Good Luck! They were a mainstay for steam fans like
myself for many years.
Ohio Central Central Station in Sugarcreek
Kelly&Kaitlyn w/1551 The family in front of 1293 on May 24th
4-6-0 #1551 4-6-2 #1293
Kelly&Kaitlyn on Connors 1st train ride. Kelly&Connor
Kaitlyn standing on platform while the 1293 pulls us back to Sugarcreek
Ohio Central Trainfest 2004
The O.C. Trainfest was a three day event held in July of 2004. It was meant to showcase all of Ohio Central's steam and diesel
equipment and operations. Numerous events were held and tons of retailers (food, hobby, merchandise) showed-up to sell their wares.
Most importantly were the train rides. They ran several one hour train rides being pulled by their steam locomotives one per day three hour
trains rides being pulled by their 6325 to the Morgan Run servicing facility. At Morgan Run, you detrain and go on a self-guided tour of the
Ohio Central Back Shop's. Inside, you could see the Lake Superior & Ishpeming #33 (from Hocking Valley) nearing the end of it's restoration.
All in all, the event was rather fun but when you look past all the smoke and mirrors, you could clearly see that this was just a means for
generating revenue....ALOT OF REVENUE. What's even more strange was not to much after this event did the O.C. fall off the map of
steam railroading. There was talk of even re-starting some facet of the one hour Sugarcreek trains and more high profile big steam
excursions but when 2005 rolled around, they posted on their website that they had no plans for any public passenger trains during 2005.
They did say, though, that they planned another one of these "trainfest's" again in 2006. We shall see................
various displays in Dennison
diesel row #1293 sporting nice Canadian Pacific paint
#6325 (Dennison) #13
#3
#6325 after pulling us to Morgan Run
#6325 at Morgan Run
F-unit on tail of Morgan Run excursion train used to pull us back to Dennison
#1551 Inside the Backshops #33
Kaitlyn posing in front of her
favorite locomotive.