Here’s a Lake Erie and Western Railroad passenger train traveling south of Bluffton toward Beaverdam and Lima.
We believe that the photographer was Samuel Amstutz, a Swiss photographer who lived in rural Bluffton, Ohio. We have other railroad and interurban photographs that Amstutz took from this area south of Bluffton.
This train originated in Sandusky, stopping at Bluffton. Behind the locomotive is a possible mail car. The last two cars carry passengers. We believe this photo was taken before 1906. That’s because we don’t see any indication of an electric interurban Western Ohio Railway trackage of powerlines.
The Western Ohio ran parallel to the Lake Erie and Western between Bluffton and Beaverdam and opened for service in 1906.
In 1922 the LE&W became part of the Nickel Plate Road.
The photo on the left shows a Lake Erie and Western freight on a side track at the Bluffton Stone Quarry in 1910 or 1011.
This Mogul (wheel arrangement 2-6-0) steam locomotive and its freight cars face Jefferson Street, heading westbound toward Lima. The locomotive is Number 1 of a company called C. Company.
The locomotive pulling the passenger train bears some similarities to the locomotive in the stone quarry photograph.