RailRoadFan.com

I was in Put-In-Bay this past weekend which is a village on South Bass Island. My girlfriend and I rented a golf cart and explored the entire island. To my surprise, I discovered railroad tracks along the highway that leads to the most southern-end of the island shore (Facing towards the mainland of Port Clinton). This railroad looked as if it has not bee used for a long time. The rail heads were rusted, the jointed rail looked rough, and the ballast was deep under the dirt where the ties were exposed and sticking out along the Right-of-way. This track looked like it was a quarter scale railroad or some form of a narrow gauge operation. The island only has one industry (A cement mixing center) which has its own fleet of trucks, but no sign of a railroad anywhere on the island except this one spot. I could not find any equipment sitting around as the trackage came from and lead into forested areas only accessed by private roads.

Anyone have any info on what the operation was, tourism, freight in the past?

Remains from the stone quarry operations out there.

More info can be found here on abandonedrails.com on the link below:

http://www.abandonedrails.com/Lakeside_ ... d_Railroad

Y@ wrote:Remains from the stone quarry operations out there.

I'm honestly surprised no one has tried to create a tourist railroad operation out of what remains of the island's trackage. With the thousands of daily tourists that visit the island and all it's attractions, a tourist railroad could make a lot of money.

Chrisracer8903 wrote: ...a tourist railroad could make a lot of money.

Two things you don't hear together too often in the same sentence.

CKS here in Indiana is closing down operations at the end of the month, you could use their equipment.

Practice Safe CSX

bluestreak81 wrote:More info can be found here on abandonedrails.com on the link below:

http://www.abandonedrails.com/Lakeside_ ... d_Railroad

Thank you for this link! I drove through Marblehead the day before I went to South Bass Island and I'm not surprised to see a railroad was once there. When I drove through town I crossed the bike trail a few times and every time I crossed the trails, there were bumps over the road that felt as if the rails were there and the trail's path looked like a former right-of-way. Is the trackage to Marblehead rail-banked?

The Lakeside and Marblehead was not on South Bass, Marblehead is on the mainland.

I know that Kelley's Island had Lima built shays for moving stone out of the quarry's.
Here some info about it
http://www.oocities.org/marblehead_quar ... sland.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=No5Cva ... ys&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=4qa_ye ... ys&f=false

If you use Google streetview, you can still see a very small segment of track where the rails once crossed East Harbor Rd about 400 feet east of Erie Beach Rd. There's only about 8 feet of rails as they head into thick brush. However, the road has been repaved since Google took the photos using streetview, and I believe the rails are now gone.

I am not sure the tiny quarry on South bass ever warranted a railroad, Kelley's Island has a very large quarry complex.

And I can not find either one of those roads on South Bass, where are they?

MagnumForce wrote:I am not sure the tiny quarry on South bass ever warranted a railroad, Kelley's Island has a very large quarry complex.

And I can not find either one of those roads on South Bass, where are they?

The track that I am talking about is along the very end of Langram Road. It comes out of the forest towards the road then loops back into the forest. It's easier to see the ROW on Bing's maps. The way it looked I wouldn't be surprised if this was some private operation or something. I couldn't follow it into the forest because the gravel road that parallels it was a private road.

I was trying to figure out where Bluestreak was talking about.

Chris I am assuming you were talking about here http://binged.it/141AN7J

Almost without a doubt with weird curves and a loop like that that is someone's backyard railroad and not anything that was any part of a real form of transport.

MagnumForce wrote:I was trying to figure out where Bluestreak was talking about.

Chris I am assuming you were talking about here http://binged.it/141AN7J

Almost without a doubt with weird curves and a loop like that that is someone's backyard railroad and not anything that was any part of a real form of transport.

Yep, that's the place. Just like you, I was thinking it was a backyard railroad like those 1/8th scale kind, but judging from the track gauge, it seemed like a much bigger scale like half or quarter scale (Such as Junction Valley Railroad) which would be big for someone's backyard. If someone can afford to live on South Bass Island, I guess they can afford a railroad that large of a scale.

MagnumForce wrote:I was trying to figure out where Bluestreak was talking about.

I was thinking about the Lakeside and Marblehead RR. Here's a link to the streeview of the rails crossing East Harbor Rd. These went to the quarry at Standard Slag at the time. However, when you do a satellite image view of the same spot today, the rails appear to be gone and just the ties remain since the road was repaved.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=marblehe ... gplus-ogsb

I have some old railroad memorabilia from the Lakeside & Marblehead that I purchased from a guy at one of the last Toledo shows a couple years ago. I can't remember his name now(I think his first name was George), but he was the expert when it came to information about this obscure operation.