#tunnleton

Tunnleton This is a westbound Baltimore & Ohio train moving through the East Fork White River Valley in southern Indiana. The small burg of Tunnleton lies above the tracks on the hill. This B&O line, between Cincinnati and St. Louis, began life as the Ohio & Mississippi. Apparently, the town was created in the mid-1850s when the line was being built—it lies halfway between Big Tunnel and Little Tunnel. The former still exists while the latter was daylighted just prior to the turn of the 20th century.

While this is the B&O, the motive power is of the Chesapeake & Ohio, part of the Chessie System. Both appear to be SD40s.

Tunnleton, Indiana

This is a westbound Baltimore & Ohio train moving through the East Fork White River valley in southern Indiana. The small burg of Tunnleton appears in the third image here. This B&O line, between Cincinnati and St. Louis began life as the Ohio & Mississippi.

Apparently, the town was created in the mid-1850s when the line was being built—and lies halfway between Big Tunnel and Little Tunnel. The former still exists, but the latter was daylighted just prior to the turn of the 20th century.

Big Tunnel

Here’s a strange, wide-angle shot I made at Big Tunnel, east of Mitchell, Indiana—near Tunnelton, naturally. With the smoke going straight up, I assume the train is moving very slowly, if at all.

This is an eastbound train on what was the Ohio & Mississippi; at the time of this photograph it was the Baltimore & Ohio—Indiana Division, Washington Subdivision (part of Chessie System).

The B&O in Southern Indiana—Part One

Over the next three posts I will show some images I took along the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Southern Indiana back in 1976. This is a line that stretches between Cincinnati and St. Louis; at this point the line is rarely used, perhaps for local service, at best.

The first two images were made east of Michell, Indiana—near the tiny town of Tunnelton, and then a bit further west off Buddha Road. While these two were made with color transparency film, I must have run out and switched to black & white negative film for the remainder (being a broke teenager).

I caught up with the train in Mitchell and was able to shoot it at the west end of the siding from the N. Teke Burton Drive Overpass. The penultimate image was made with the train approaching Georgia Siding, west of Mitchell, while the final picture was taken a mile and a half east of Loogootee, Indiana, from the Highway 150 Overpass.

The lead unit, in the colorful Chessie System scheme, B&O 3546, is an EMD GP35 that was built in July of 1964. The following units are of the Southern Pacific run-through power: an SD40 and a GE U-boat.