These photos and postcard images show the Marion depot and the surrounding territory. The postcards images would be derived from photographs taken about 1910 to 1920-ish.

The photographs were taken by Don Santel of Dayton Ohio on a railfan trip arranged to run over the Erie's Dayton Branch from Dayton to Marion on May 4, 1952 and apparently a later date in 1954. The group photographed some of the trains crossing the diamonds by the depot and from the steps on AC tower which sat atop a steel frame three stories up.

Other PRR photos are from the Gary Rolih negative collection and were mostly taken by Fred J. Sankoff of Ontario, Canada on his trips south to photograph steam. Others were from C. A. Buehler taken on another railfan trip of the Cincinnati Railroad Club on October 4, 1952

Looking southwest in a bird's eye view in roughly 1902, two depots at Marion are shown nestled against the Marion Steam Shovel factories. The Pennsylvania Sandusky Branch and their wood depot are on the lower left corner. Marion Union depot is in the lower center. The C&O/Hocking Valley line runs from the middle left side to the lower right corner between the Union Depot and Marion Steam Shovel factories. The New York Central and Erie mainlines run form the lower edge to the right center. Behind the fourth car on the passenger train on the NYC/Erie tracks are the tracks curving off to the southwest for the Dayton Branch.

West of the train on the PRR Sandusky Branch is the C&O/Hocking Valley Freight house.

AC tower is not shown in this view nor is the Marion Depot hotel that sat north of the PRR depot and east of the Marion Union Depot. Lithograph postcards frequently have some "artistic license" taken in them. Marion Steam Shovel, later Marion Power Shovel, was one of the truly significant builders of earth moving equipment in the late 1800's and 1900's. Its last great construction was the NASA crawler that moves the Space Shuttle across Cape Canaveral form the erection building to the launch pad. The company is no more and most of the factory buildings seen in this view have been demolished.


Another bird's eye view of the Marion union depot locale looking north east across the PRR Sandusky Branch circa 1920. On the left edge is the baggage room for the Union depot. The beige building is the Erie office building for the superintendents and foremen for the Erie Yard. Across the PRR tracks is a gray building housing the Marion Union Depot Hotel. To the right is the PRR depot for the Sandusky Branch. This depot was closed in the mid-1920's as the Sandusky Branch had few passenger trains in the early years.

In the background, in the north east corner of the PRR- NYC/Erie diamond is the old Marion Foundry much of which still stands today.

AC Tower is just out of view on the left edge of the postcard.

Downtown Marion is a few blocks to east of these depots.


A postcard view of the Marion Union Depot looking southeast across the C&O- NYC/Erie diamonds into the station agents bay window. In this view the Erie office building is not yet built. A C&O/Hocking Valley train is on the right and the hotel is on the left. The signal bridge over the NYC/Erie main stood for decades.

Another postcard view of the Marion Union Depot looking southeast across the C&O- NYC/Erie diamond. In later years each railroad constructed umbrella shed over their section of the platform.

A postcard view looking north into the access side of the Marion Union Depot form the C&O/Hocking Valley tracks. One of the Marion Steam Shovel buildings shows on the left edge of the card. The roof of AC Tower pokes up above the right side of the depot buildings. The tower sat in the northwest corner of the PRR- NYC/Erie diamond.

A postcard of the Union Hotel looking southeast across the then single-track PRR Sandusky Branch. The lunch room in the hotel stayed open for a few more years after the creation of AMTRAK when passenger trains ceased operating on the Penn Central or Erie. It was nicknamed 'the beanery' and was used by many railroad employees.

Marion, Ohio

A C&O eastbound freight approaching the C&O- NYC/Erie diamonds on the west side of Marion Union Depot on May 4, 1952. The Erie baggage car sits on the now-removed Erie-C&O westbound connection track. Photograph taken by Don Santel.

A westbound C&O freight with F's on the point cruises past the Marion Power Shovel factories and the Marion Union Depot. Note the uncommon twin post umbrella sheds built by the C&O along their platform. The classic C&O signal bridge and the tall, brick factory building still stand today, but the two-story building and the F's are long gone from this line. Photograph taken by Don Santel.

C&O F unit 7006 leads a coal train westbound past the Marion Union depot and the classic signal bridge with semaphores on May 4, 1952. The train will soon be at Fostoria, Ohio and head to Toledo and the Toledo Docks to unload the coal. Don Santel photograph.

Photographed by Don Santel standing on a platform of a passenger car running on the Erie's Dayton Branch, the Erie Alco S-1 switcher 308 is working Marion yard from the "Oklahoma Track" giving access to the Erie yard just out of sight to the left. Marion Union Depot is 400 yards to the right of this view. Behind 308 are the eastward connection tracks from the Erie to the C&O for interchange. Today this connection is still used by CSX coming down from Toledo that need to head west for Indianapolis.

A rare photo of some very rare units. GE Test Units ABBA set heading westward on the Oklahoma track into the Erie yard tracks at Marion, Ohio taken sometime in 1954. The track curving to the left behind the locomotives olds interchange cars off of the Erie for the PRR. To the right of the locomotives are the Erie westbound main and the NYC eastbound main next to the Marion Union Depot platforms.

This ABBA set was built strictly for test purposes by GE in 1954 and operated on the Erie in Erie colors until 1959. GE then re-engined the units from 1200 hp to 2000 hp and sold the set to the UP, who eventually traded the units in for U50's. While built in Erie, these are not "Erie Builts" which were GE-FM cab diesels.

The westbound main, 400 yards behind the photographer, will split into the Dayton Branch curving southwest to Dayton, Ohio and the Erie's Chicago Main. The NYC mainline will also reform into a two-track main, nicknamed the Bee Line, behind the photographer and head to Sydney, Ohio, Union City on the Ohio-Indiana border and Indianapolis.


These GE transformers on a depressed center flat follow the Erie-builts into Marion Yard. AC Tower's stairs are on the left edge of this photograph. 1954 Don Santel photo.

Some Erie varnish on the eastward connecting track joining the Erie westbound main to the C&O westbound main. This track is now removed, but the model board in AC Tower still shows the connection although the route is painted over. Behind are the eastbound home semaphore signals on the PRR Sandusky Branch.

The railfan group gets a tour of the roundhouse on the Erie at Marion. As Marion was a mid-point on the Erie system, it served as the central servicing point for locomotives running between Hornell and Chicago. Don Santel photo.

The Erie set out a number of their RS-3's for display to the railfans on tour. Don Santel photo.

PRR 6488, a 2-10-4 Class J-1, hits the diamonds at AC Tower with a westbound train. This shot is taken from the steps of AC Tower and looks southeast to the Union Hotel and the corner of the Erie office building. The Columbus area and the Sandusky Branch were one of the last areas for PRR steam. Don Santel photo.

While loads of coal and empty hoppers were the most common types of trains on this line, this J-1 has a long manifest freight in tow. Having stopped at the home signal for a short while, the J-1 gets underway eastbound under the shadow of its own smoke plume.

The PRR H21 hopper cars are on the lead into the foundry behind. There are two leads along side, one being the Erie-to PRR connection and the middle lead, the NYC-to-PRR connection. Both leads proceed north along the mainline to the PRR Marion Yard about a 1/4 mile north.

A Don Santel photo taken from the steps of AC Tower looking north.

NYC Mail Train 407 stopping at Marion on May 4, 1952 as taken by Rick Acton Senior of Dayton Ohio.

Worthington, Ohio

Worthington, Ohio was a small suburb on the upper northwest edge of the Columbus metropolitan area In the 1950's. (The 1997 N&WHS convention hotel was in Worthington.) It had the important crossing of the PRR Sandusky Branch with the New York Central's Columbus to Cleveland line. The diamond was controlled by a New York Central, two story, wood tower named Worthington that was an interlocking and block station for the PRR. During a railfan trip to Columbus, Don Santel took the following photographs.

NYC C-Liner with a trailing F unit coming from Columbus approaches Worthington Tower with a freight train. The PRR Sandusky line is double track here and cuts from east to west across the NYC single track.

PRR I-1s Class 4536 leads a J-1 class 2-10-4 westbound past the siding in Worthington. A few years later George Silcott would rebuild locomotives here. Just to the north of this view, the Ohio Railroad Museum would start their operation and run excursions with N&W 578.

PRR 4536 and J-1 in a going away shot at Worthington. A lot of L&N coal went northward on the Sandusky Branch along with tons of N&W coal. Note the head end brakeman in the J-1's doghouse.

PR 6488 is leading a string of empty L&N hoppers eastbound past Worthington Tower. This photo is taken from the ground next to the tower and looking to the northwest. This J-1 would end its career running coal out of Columbus.

PRR 6488 and AT&SF 2-10-4 #5022 crossing the NYC line with LN coal headed for Sandusky. In the summer of 1956, the power short PRR found it less costly to lease some stored AT&SF 2-10-4's than refurbish and return to service the large number of J-1's stored in Columbus, Ohio.

PRR St. Clair Shops - Columbus, Ohio

The St Clair shops were the fourth largest shops on the PRR system, It was named after the St Clair Avenue roadway that now provides the railfan photographer a perfect elevation over the coaling facility and ready tracks. In steam days, downtown Columbus was a nest of tracks and freight house sidings running past the Columbus Union depot.

Looking northwest toward the N&W's Joyce Avenue Yard in the far distance, Don Santel caught AT&SF 2-10-4 #5016 preparing to move out on to the mainline. Around the curve of tracks in the distance is the dead line of PRR steam It is late 1956 and steam on the Sandusky Branch has less than a year to live. By mid-1957, all of the J-1's will be set aside for scrap.

The Cincinnati Railroad Club made an excursion to Columbus, Ohio riding on the NYC from Cincinnati, to Dayton to Springfield and Columbus. This photo of PRR J-1 #6418 next to the boiler shop at the St Clair locomotive shops was taken by C. A. Buehler.

Sandusky Branch

PRR 6494 with a load of coal cars heading up to Sandusky running past the very small town of Caroline, Ohio. A few miles to the north- westbound- is Attica Junction and the crossing of the Sandusky Branch by the B&O Chicago mainline. This photo was taken by Fred Sankoff of Ontario, Canada.

PRR 6428 is passing Wheeling Tower in Bellevue, Ohio with a loaded coal train on the Nickel Plate Chicago mainline on May 9, 1955. The tower, sometimes known as Bellevue tower, controlled the crossing of the Nickel Plate mainline by the Wheeling & Lake Erie line up to Toledo and the NYC Norwalk Branch swinging back up to Toledo. The PRR ran about a mile on the Nickel Plate to the west end of Bellevue yard where the PRR regained the Sandusky Branch. Wheeling tower was manned by PRR and Wheeling operators giving the roads with fewer trains a chance over the very active NKP mainline.

PRR 6418 sits in Bayshore Yard in Sandusky, Ohio wreathed in smoke. Although this photo is undated, the cars in the rear show that this is around 1956 and steam doesn't have long to live on this branch.