Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway | EMD SD40-2 Tigers

In this video we follow two Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway Trains. First we see train 224 (WE 7005 and WE 7017) on Sept 26th 2021 in Bellevue before it dies on hours and is tied down. Second we chase train 222 on with four W&LE "Tigers" (WE 7019, WE 7020, WE 7005, WE 7002) from West Clarksfield to Dalton, OH. There was a group of us chasing, including three drones that can be heard a couple times in the video.

00:00 Bellevue, OH - Train 224
02:45 West Clarksfield - Train 222
03:38 Brighton Township
04:13 Spencer, OH
05:25 Harrisville Township
06:27 Milton Township
08:28 Dalton, OH

Locomotive Power:

WE 7005 - BCOL 758 (SD40-2)
WE 7017 - MILW 174 (SD40-2)
WE 7019 - MILW 176 (SD40-2)
WE 7020 - BCOL 758 (SD40-2)
WE 7002 - MP 3201 (SD40-2)

The Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway (reporting mark WE) is a Class II regional railroad that provides freight service, mainly in the U.S. state of Ohio. It took its name from the former Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway, most of which it bought from the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1990.

In 1990, the Norfolk and Western Railway, a subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Railway, sold portions of its lines in Ohio and Pennsylvania, including most of the lines of the former W&LE and the Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railroad, as well as a lease on the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad, to the Wheeling Acquisition Corporation. The name was changed to the Wheeling and Lake Erie "Railway" in May, before operations began. At its formation, trackage rights on Norfolk Southern were extended to the new organization to serve several limestone quarries in the Bellevue, Ohio area, and trackage rights with CSX Transportation from Connellsville, Pennsylvania to Hagerstown, Maryland, this being a remnant of the 1950s Alphabet Route of which the original W&LE was a part. W&LE Ry also maintains trackage rights from Wellington to Cleveland on CSX.

The only portions of the original W&LE operated by companies other than the current W&LE are the NS line west of Bellevue (W&LE now has trackage rights to Toledo on this line, obtained after the Conrail split in 1999); the former Cleveland Division line south of Harmon (Brewster) that was sold to Ohio Central Railroad by NS in 1988; and the Huron docks trackage. The Huron Branch, W&LE's first line between Norwalk and Huron, was acquired by W&LE but was never activated north of the Norwalk city limits and was later removed in its entirety. W&LE still serves the Huron Docks using trackage rights on NS's former Nickel Plate Road line from Bellevue and a connecting line to the docks built by the NKP in 1952. A few other small portions of the original W&LE and AC&Y have been abandoned and/or replaced with trackage rights on parallel lines by W&LE.

More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelin...)

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