Of all the forlorn railroads or right-of-ways explored, the LE&P certainly had the best of storied pasts. Planned as a connecting route from a Pennsylvania mainline at Brady Lake, Ohio to the port city of Lorain on Lake Erie, the railroad never achieved the latter of these goals.
Although considerable grading was accomplished with some bridge abutments set in place wherever the the road encountered a waterway, the original course of the railroad through Berea, Olmsted Falls, North Ridgeville, and into Lorain had to be abandoned due to unfavorable conditions encountered at Berea.
Track layers or construction crews came upon some very soft and subsequent swampy terrain that attempts to lay ties or track on resulted in these materials virtually disappearing any time any form of weight was laid upon them. Constant dirt fill was brought in to try and alleviate the problem, all to no avail.
Therefore, a new route was laid out, taking the LE&P some distance to the east of its original course, and resulting in it now becoming a bridge or connecting route between two major rail carriers, they being the New York Central and the Pennsylvania.
Both railroads had a vested interest in the LE&P, each sharing a 50% ownership in it, thus allowing for both of them to operate trains over its rails. However, and as to why remains an unanswered question, the Pennsylvania never exercised these rights, leaving that privilege to sole descretion of the Central.
The new route of the LE&P took it from a connection off of the NYCs so-called short line, itself connecting to the Centrals lake-front line, from a point near Cuyahoga Heights, Ohio, which in earlier times had been known as Marcy. At this location was a railroad yard, aptly called Marcy Yard.
Leaving this yard headed southeast, the rails almost immediately crossed the first of three steel trestles that had to be constructed to cross steep valleys encountered along the new route. This first trestle was called, again aptly enough, Marcy Trestle. A real labor of construction, it stood some 70 to 100 feet above the valley it crossed and, another railroad, while stretching some 800 feet in length.
The other two trestles earlier mentioned were equally as impressive in their own right, offering spectacular views of the countryside they traversed. They were at locations called Tinkers Creek, which is now a state park, and near a present day ski resort called Brandywine.
Operating solely as a freight transferring railroad, the LE&P from its inception in 1906 to the ill-fated days of the Pennsylvania-New York Central merger, the LE&P proved to be a very worthwhile venture. It never secured any other forms of revenue, managing to survive solely as a bridge or connecting route. The unsecured other forms of revenue also included no passenger service offered, mainly because the railroad never passed by any populated areas.
At its end in 1968, a more favorable passage into Cleveland was to serve the newly formed Penn Central, and the Lake Erie and Pittsburg passed into railroad history. The steel trestles were dismantled, while track and ties were removed with right-of-way left to be reclaimed by nature.
Though this is the case presently, some of the former railroad has been turned into a hiking/biking trail by the city of Akron, Ohio. What ever else remains has been pretty much reclaimed by nature. Sandstone bridge abutments, set in place, but, never seeing rail or ties still stand at Berea in the Rocky River river bed and again in the same river bed at Olmsted Falls, near where present day Bagley Road crosses the river.
The right-of-way through the city of North Ridgevilles eastern border presently has a line of metal towers carrying high voltage electrical wires. A partial bridge abutment sits on the bank of the French Creek at a metro park site in Sheffield Lake of the same name.
Stone bridge footers that once supported the steel trestles can be found at the Tinkers Creek site, at the point where the railroad began its journey from Marcy Yard, and, at the valley crossing near present day Brandywine ski resort.
Marcy Yard still survives, operated by successor to Conrail, Norfolk-Southern. It is not clear as to what capacity the yard serves. There is a medium sized trestle still in place at this location, called Marcy Trestle by the railroad. It is not, however, the one referred to earlier in this story.
RELATED PHOTOS by Willis McCaleb, from the collection of Mr. Al Doane of Lorain
