Presbyterian College > Academic Web Server > Jon Bell > Transit > (Cities | Types) > Cleveland > EL
On 6 January 1970, the Erie Lackawanna Railway discontinued its last long-distance passenger trains, leaving only its commuter services in northern New Jersey which are now operated by New Jersey Transit, and a single weekday round trip between Youngstown and Cleveland, Ohio. The EL tried to discontinue this train, too, but was denied permission by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, based on protests by passengers. (When I was in high school in Warren, I had an acquaintance whose father used that train to commute to work in Cleveland, and was active in campaigns to keep it running.)
Most passengers lived in Cleveland's eastern suburbs, out to Aurora, about a third of the total route mileage. Nevertheless, the train had to run to Youngstown so that the locomotive could be turned around, despite the fact that only a handful of passengers actually rode that far.
When Conrail took over the bankrupt EL in 1976, it closed the EL offices in Cleveland, near Union Terminal. Ridership dropped sharply. It seems that most of the passengers had been EL workers using their complementary railroad passes! The train was reduced from three coaches to one, and when Conrail proposed abandoning it, there was now little or no opposition. The last run was on 14 January 1977.
[picture] Train 28, en route from Cleveland to Youngstown, comes to a stop at the Garrettsville-Hiram station late on a Friday afternoon in May 1973. Although the station sign proclaimed, "Home of Hiram College", the station in Garrettsville was actually over three miles from Hiram. On this day, I walked from Hiram (where I was going to college), and rode the train home to Warren for the weekend.
| CLEVELAND - WARREN - YOUNGSTOWN | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 | Miles from Cleve- land |
EASTERN STANDARD TIME | 29 | ||
| Daily Ex Sat., Sun & Hol. |
Daily Ex Sat., Sun & Hol. | ||||
| PM | Cleveland, Ohio | AM | |||
| 5:20 | 0.0 | Lv. | Union Terminal Public Square | Ar. | 7:40 |
| 5:29 | 2.9 | " | E. 55th St. & McBride Ave. | Lv. | 7:32 |
| 5:40 | 8.3 | " | Lee Rd., Shaker Heights Station | " | 7:21 |
| 5:45 | 10.3 | " | North Randall | " | 7:16 |
| 5:52 | 15.5 | " | Solon | " | 7:10 |
| 5:59 | 20.0 | " | Geauga Lake | " | 7:02 |
| 6:06 | 23.3 | " | Aurora | " | 6:56 |
| 6:24 | 29.7 | " | Mantua | " | 6:45 |
| 6:17 | 33.9 | " | Jeddoe | " | 6:38 |
| 6:30 | 36.4 | " | Garrettsville-Hiram | " | 6:31 |
| 6:51 | 52.3 | " | Warren | " | 6:12 |
| 6:59 | 57.4 | " | Niles | " | 6:02 |
| 7:10 | 66.2 | Ar. | Youngstown | Lv. | 5:50 |
This page was last updated on 11 August 2007, and verified on 5 December 2007.
Presbyterian College > Academic Web Server > Jon Bell > Transit > (Cities | Types) > Cleveland > EL
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![[picture]](../../images/Cleveland/EL/Garrettsville.jpg){kind=link}