In northeast Ohio, a railroad-park symbiosis

Students of American passenger train history are familiar with the role railroads played in supporting the preservation and enjoyment of the big Western National Parks. But a passenger train service has played an equally key role in the life of a newer and lesser-known National Park in a Midwestern urban area known historically for heavy industry. The Valley Railway, which became a Baltimore and Ohio branch line, was built in 1880 along the Cuyahoga River to connect Cleveland to the railroad's east-west main line (now CSX's New Castle Subdivision) at Canton and to serve the industries along the line. It now enjoys a second life giving northeast Ohio's residents and visitors access to the recreational opportunities in the restored woodlands and wetlands of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, created in 1974 and designated a National Park in 2000 (the only National Park in Ohio). 

The passenger service is the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad (CVSR). The operating railroad itself is a nonprofit organization relying entirely on volunteers to operate trains, assist passengers and sell and collect tickets. It runs over tracks owned by the National Park Service using equipment that is mostly owned by Akron's transit agency, METRO. It runs four round-trips every day (except Mondays and Tuesdays) June-August and October, and only on weekends the rest of the year, between Akron Northside station to the south (in an area with a mix of residential and retail within walking distance and offering connections to METRO buses) and Rockside station to the north (offering connections, via a short walk) to RTA buses connecting with downtown Cleveland. 

I hopped on RTA's Route 77F bus in downtown Cleveland around 11 AM on a sunny, warm Wednesday in late June. After a quick ride southeast on the Willow Freeway, I stepped off in the middle of a suburban shopping mall at the intersection of Rockside and Brecksville Rds. After stopping at a coffee shop for refreshment, I walked about a mile downhill along Rockside Rd to where it crosses the Cuyahoga. Below me, on the river's west bank, passed the single-track, jointed-rail main line, and to my right was Rockside station. Like all of the Scenic's stations except for Peninsula (roughly the route's midpoint), it was a simple wooden shelter with a roof and no walls, a simple uncovered low-level platform, and an outhouse nearby. The only enclosed part was a small ticket office.

The majority of those who were awaiting the 12:45 PM train along with me had bicycles, including a large bicycling group. Anybody can bring a bike aboard to or from any station to take advantage of the extensive network of hiker-biker trails within the Park, including the towpath along what remains of the Ohio and Erie Canal (built in 1827 to connect its namesake river and lake). When the train pulled in from the south, the group of about 30 cyclists walked their vehicles toward the baggage car at the north end of the train and handed them one-by-one to a crew member through one of the car's two big sliding doors -- but not before a couple dozen disembarking passengers' bikes were unloaded first. 

The train runs in push-pull mode with locomotives on both ends as there is no wye along the route. On this day, the railroad's elegant Alco FPA-4 No. 800, painted in dark and light blue B&O livery with gold lettering, was on the south end, with a black-painted GP15 No. 1420 lettered "LTEX" on the north end. I boarded the train's lone dome car “Emerson” (presumably named for Ralph Waldo), a Budd short dome of CB&Q California Zephyr heritage (obvious by the Western scene painted on the wall facing the lounge at its south-facing end), which was placed in the middle of the consist. The rest of the passenger cars were a mix of commuter and intercity coaches of the streamliner era of a variety of backgrounds. There was also a snack and souvenir car, two cars south of the dome. Upper Dome tickets (the railroad's premium accommodation, but still very reasonably priced at $27 for the round-trip) are only sold for departures out of Rockside, even though tickets from every other station on the line are accepted on the same train.

The dome car's air conditioning was not enough to combat the greenhouse effect of the strong sun's heating on the upper level, so I split my time between the dome and the lower level of the car. Seating in the dome is four across at each of eight tables, and every seat was full on my departure, so I joined a mother and her two teenage daughters from Connecticut. The mother kept nagging the girls to get off their iPhones and take in the passing scenery, to which one would respond "It's just trees" or "It's just a field." True, the CVSR route does not rank amongst the continent's most spectacular, but I found it a very pleasant and surprisingly wooded oasis in an urban area. The mostly slow-moving river could be seen most of the way, along with several large wetlands and open fields, with the occasional old farmhouse or barn. There were hardly any visible reminders that this, like West Virginia's New River Gorge, was once a bustling industrial corridor. Most of the line literally snaked through the trees, with several low-hanging limbs scraping the dome as it passed beneath at a top speed of 25 mph -- a leisurely but not poky clip.

Refrigerated bottled water, goldfish crackers, pretzels, peanut butter and vanilla cookies were available to Dome class passengers, and the snack car sold hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn and various sweets, along with one of the biggest selections of microbrew beer and specialty wines and sodas that I've seen on a tourist railroad. Most station stops lasted about 2 minutes. Except for Peninsula and Akron Northside, the stations were small shelters in the great outdoors. Peninsula is an actual village with small shops and eateries, home to a small Amish community.   

I rode all the way to Akron Northside station, arriving around 2:00 PM, the train making the 22.8-mile trip in one and a quarter hours with all five intermediate stops. I stepped off and walked up and down the train to get photos during its 30-minute layover, then hopped back on for the return trip. A friend, who had been chasing the train most of the way north, met me at Peninsula, where I disembarked to get photos. We then drove up to Boston Mill station, where we beat the train and got more photos before leaving to explore other parts of the National Park. 

Cuyahoga Valley National Park would probably get decent visitation in the absence of the CVSR, but the train’s presence allows more visitors to experience the park in a low-impact way, either leaving their cars at one end of the line or the other and touring on foot or by bicycle, or entirely car-free through connections to regional transit buses on both ends. If Ohio and the United States had a more enlightened transportation policy, with passenger rail receiving investment more commensurate with highways, it’s easy to imagine the former B&O line being part of a robust regional rail network connecting Cleveland to Akron and Canton, with transfers available to access the rest of northeast Ohio’s city and town centers and the national passenger train network. For now, though, we can be thankful for the foresight of the line’s former owners, the National Park Service and Akron METRO for keeping this transportation asset intact and in the public service.

The "National Park Scenic" rounds a curve in the heart of Cuyahoga Valley N.P. on its mid-day southbound run, seen from the "Emerson" short dome.

Passengers detrain while others queue up to board at Rockside station in Independence, OH mid-day on a warm Wednesday, June 24.