Bessemer & Lake Erie operations

What are the best options as I want to go out and photograph the operations of the Bessemer and Lake Erie? How many trains do they run and is there any indication on times? I have located their yards and lines on the map but have no clue as to accessability from public ground and operations.

Thanks in advance!

The BLE is a big railroad that covers a lot of terrain, and is not the easiest railroad to just walk up to and start taking pictures. It's not a terribly busy railroad, and portions of the operation are not accessable.

Is there a certain area you want to concentrate on? You best bet would be to start at a location like Butler, and listen to the radio for when the next train departs. Then, familiarize yourself with the local roads and give chase.

There was a BLE feature in Railpace a couple of months ago... and there is a BLE list on Yahoo! you might be interested in. Those might be good places to start.

-otto-

Otto, As you might assume already this question is part of a bigger picture. Since I have scheduled a stay in the New York State's Southern Tier area I might explore a part of Pennsylvania as well. I will use one day heading south to Butler PA while in search of the B&P and I am looking for options to head back into the direction of Lake Erie. the Bessemmer and Lake Erie then seems a logical choise. So my plan is to get some action on the Buter - Erie section of it.

NS3737-the yards in Albion (Erie County) PA used to be a great place to see Bessemer & Lake Erie motive power. I've not lived in the area for 25 years now and I understand that business has slowed considerably, however the trackage can be easily viewed from public streets. Another area you may want to check out is Osgood Junction, north of Greenville, where the B&LE, Erie-Lackawanna and PRR all converged at one time. I'm sure that this area is no longer the train-watching mecca it once was but may be worth the trip.

PS-have you tried posting in the B&LE forum?

Aa3rt,

I did not know there was a forum dedicated to the B&LE, I will post an inquiry there too!

Is the B&LE forum still around? I didn't find it under Fallen Flags or Active Railroads, and I didn't look in the CN forum... I believe I had posted info about ops in and around Greenville, but it seems to be gone.

Anyway, here's a link to my lone online photo of B&LE from my trip in June of 2004, when it was already a fallen flag.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/201 ... 9294eqZBsC

Since I made that post on August 16 of last year, it appears that the B&LE forum has been incorporated into "Pennsylvania Railfan".