Last Train to Youngstown - The Final Conrail Commuter Train

Unless you were around to see it, you’d never know today. But in the West Commerce Street Parking lot in downtown Youngstown, once ran the Chicago to New York Mainline of the Erie, later Erie Lackawanna, Railroad and 40 years ago this January, the last passenger train pulled into Youngstown's Erie Terminal.

The Youngstown Vindicator headline on January 15, 1977 read, “Cleveland Commuter Train Dies with Fanfare – Last Passenger Train for City.” The train would depart Erie Terminal in Youngstown at 5:50am, and stop at stations in Niles, Warren, Hiram, Geauga Lake, Solon, and a few others, before pulling into Cleveland Union Terminal at 7:40am. Crews would then spin the train, and get ready for a 5:20pm departure. After another hour and 50-minute trip, stopping at the same stations, it would arrive back in Youngstown at 7:10pm, and the process would begin to ready the train for the next morning’s trip.

Despite the creation of Amtrak in 1971, which would take over passenger rail operations in the United States, even up to the end, this particular train was run by a freight railroad. Once Erie Lackawanna merged to create Conrail in 1976, the ticking time clock on the train only accelerated. As the Ohio turnpike became more popular, ridership on the commuter train declined significantly. After roughly 90 years of operation, beginning when passenger trains were the elite travel service, train 28 and its counterpart 29, ran out of federal funds and Ohio declined to subsidize the money losing service. The two were Ohio’s last two commuter trains, and the last of the several hundred daily passenger trains that once served Youngstown. Conrail, and even Erie Lackawanna, had tried to drop them - and the money losses for years, and finally got their wish on January 14, 1977.

Tom Diacen, a long time railfan from Austintown, rode the train in 1974 next to the engineer from Youngstown to Cleveland and back. Less than three years later, he returned to Erie Terminal on January 14 with his silent film camera to capture the train departing in the morning and returning in the evening one last time.

Despite Amtrak servicing Youngstown from November 12, 1990 to September 10, 1995 with the Broadway Limited, and then May 16, 1997 to March 7, 2005 with the Three Rivers, Youngstown has once again been formally erased from the list of cities with passenger rail service.

Erie Terminal thrives today, housing a brewery, art gallery, a cookie shop, and apartments, a long cry from what it was built for. Sure, trains still run through Youngstown, however, none that stop to pick up passengers, and none that stop to bring travelers to the city.