Seattle bound

One of the challenges in taking train pictures is keeping things interesting when dealing with the same limited subject matter. There are only a limited number of trains, and most of the time their appearance doesn't change. Hard to tell one day's trains from the next.

My approach is to look for different locations, angles, and perspectives. This shot is a good example. This train, Amtrak's Coast Starlight bound for Seattle, always stops in Eugene about lunchtime. If I go to the station I can count on the same scene, almost every day. That does get boring after awhile. So, I've moved down the tracks a few blocks, to catch the train leaving downtown. In the background is Grain Millers, whose towering concrete silos make for a good scenic prop. I've zoomed in really tight, shortening the perspective to make it appear that the train and silos are much closer than they really are. This perspective gives me another bonus, cutting out most of the trash and graffiti littering the trackside right of way.

#18 at Bartle tank

Even before I started taking train pictures, I've enjoyed hiking along the railroad. One time when I was only three or four years old, I set out from my folks house to walk along some nearby tracks, ending up miles from home. But, that's a story for another time and place.

Besides the physical act of hiking, all sorts of things are waiting to be found back where most people never go. Neat things like old structures. Not being visited by people generally means they are in good shape, not vandalized and covered with graffitti. With the right combination of perspective and imagination, I've been able to capture some real "back in time" images.

About 20 miles east of McCloud, California on the McCloud River Railroad sits Bartle tank. This antique wooden water tank dates from the very early days of the line, and was used to resupply water to steam locomotives. It is a bit of a hike in from the nearest road crossing, so not many people get to it.  I don't know if it was still in use by the date of this picture. The occasional steam powered tourist train that passed this way didn't need to rewater this soon after leaving town, nor did the line's diesel freights. I'm glad to have found it. It definitely added some visual interest to an otherwise unremarkable line.

I'd like to buy a vowel, please

No trains in this shot, just the path where they once traveled. This is near Likely, California, in the extreme northeast corner of the state. More cows and sagebrush than people and palm trees up here. This is the former Modoc Line, built by the Southern Pacific Railroad to provide a shortcut for Oregon lumber headed east. There was almost no online traffic, since the only population center of any size that it served was Alturas, which isn't exactly a major metropolis. As the lumber traffic diminished so did the need for the line, and in the early 2000s it was closed, and the tracks were beginning to be taken up.

Although the rails and ties have been pulled up and mostly removed, the block signs remained in place.These enabled the train crews and dispatcher to identify where a train was, and insure that it was the only train on that portion of the line at the time. I found it very curious that almost every sign had only the vowels missing. It didn't seem that they would be any less likely to stick to the sign than consonants, so my thinking is that they were gone on purpose. What purpose and by whom I could only guess - aliens? Vanna White?

I'll never know.

Buffalo Express

There was a lot of historic rail preservation and operation going on in the east in the 1980s. After the formation of Conrail in 1976, thousands of miles of track were spun off to smaller shortlines. These tended to be more friendly towards railfans, and many catered to them. The shedding of track made a lot of old equipment surplus, which came on the market for relatively low prices, well within what an individual could pay. I came close to buying a partial interest in a locomotive for a few thousand dollars. I personally knew of several people who bought their own locomotives, cars, and even knew someone who started their own railroad with surplussed track and cars! Then there were many active organizations that pooled resources to acquire and restore historic rail equipment.

One of the most active groups was headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania. They not only bought and restored locomotives and cars, but also the former Reading Railroad shop facilities in which to do their work. The railroad that served the shops, the Blue Mountain and Reading, was quite happy to host and run the historic equipment on their lines.

I took this shot in the mid 1980s, but could easily have done the exact same 30 years earlier. The restored Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives pulling through a restored Pennsy signal bridge, pulling period cars, looked just as it would have when that line ran their daily passenger train from Reading to Buffalo, New York. When I shot it the train only ran from Reading to a few miles outside of town and back, for tourists.

One of the things I enjoy about train photography is the connection with my interest in American history. With the appropriate equipment and setting, it lets me to go back to an earlier time.

Cortland corset company

The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad (NYS&W, Susie-Q) was a shortline that served customers on branchlines off the Conrail mainlines in upstate New York and New Jersey. The president of the railroad was a railfan himself, so the line was very accommodating for passenger specials. They had a fleet of their own passenger cars, and went so far as to purchase a new steam locomotive from China to power their specials. The railroad was very cooperative with area rail groups in allowing them to operate their own equipment.

I lived not too far from one of their routes, and for many years got to see regular passenger excursions. Every spring the line would operate trains to ferry passengers to and from the small town of Marathon, New York, for the annual Maple Festival. Various trips would be operated throughout the summer, and Autumn always brought fall foliage trips.

Today's picture is of one of those fall color excursions.  The train is being powered by the Lackawanna 808, and one of the railroad's own units. The 808 was privately owned by the local chapter of the National Railway Historical Society who restored it to operational status for use on these specials. The passenger cars were a combination of the chapter's and the railroad's. I caught it passing through Cortland, New York, home of the Cortland Corset Company. The company was long out of business by the time of this shot, but someone kept the sign on the building in good shape, perhaps recognizing it's historic significance. The CCC was the workplace of one Chester Gillette, who in 1906 committed the "crime of the century" for upstate New York. That crime was novelized by Theodore Dreiser in 1925 as An American Tragedy, and the film "A Place in the Sun" with Liz Taylor in the early 1950s. Since one of my other interests is American history, I found Cortland a strangely fascinating place because of it's connection to that story.

Fall foliage

When one thinks of glorious fall colors, the northeast US comes to mind. The bright reds, yellows, and oranges of the hardwood forests, the blue skies with puffy clouds, that is the picture of fall.

Where I lived in upstate New York, that was a hard combination to come by. My experience was that only about every third year had a brilliant display of colors. Many factors contributed to putting on a good show. The summer had to be hot, but not too hot. There had to be enough, but not too much moisture. Temperatures had to turn cold enough, but not too cold for too long for colors to form. Finally, it had to not rain (or snow!) in September and early October. When we did see color, the peak usually only lasted about a week.

Trying to take train pictures of the fall foliage added another complication. Besides being at the whim of Mother Nature to provide the colors, I also had to be able to get off work on days when the sun was out. And, the railroad had to run trains! Taking all the above into account, it was tough to get good pictures.

One of the best is this shot near Cameron, New York,  in the Canisteo River Gorge. This was a scenic river valley that contained Conrail's Southern Tier Line. At one time it was the busy mainline of the Erie Railroad between New York City and Buffalo. By the time I took this shot it was a secondary route, only seeing about six trains a day. The one good thing for me as a railfan was that those ran on pretty regular schedules, so I could count on seeing at least a couple in daylight every day, at a known time. And, since I knew about when the trains would come by, I could pick a location and setup for my shot in plenty of time.

An unfortunate accident happened just after I got this shot. My camera, which was mounted on a tripod so I could safely stand away from the tracks, was blown over by the train. It landed lens first in the gravel. Luckily I had a protective filter on the front of the lens, which took the blow. The $10 filter was shattered, but my expensive lens was unharmed. A good reason to use a filter!

Last of their kind

Before the late 1920s, this was the Southern Pacific Railroad's mainline between Oregon and California. Dozens of trains a day - freight and passenger - plied these rails. If you or your goods wanted to travel south this is the route you took. The SP invested heavily in upgrading track and bridges, and installed a state of the art semaphore signaling system to control the busy line.

That all changed in 1927 when the Cascade Line was opened. Fewer curves and lesser grades made it the preferred route, and this line became secondary. Traffic dwindled, and in 1995 it was sold to the Central Oregon and Pacific (CORP), who served the remaining lumber products producers in towns like Roseburg and Medford, hauling to the mainline connection in Eugene or Black Butte. The semaphores remained in service, though signaling the passage of fewer and fewer trains. Time was catching up to them, and by the end of the first decade of the new millennium they were removed from service and taken down.

This set of signals was just south of Creswell. I captured them in September 2009, the last of their kind.

Train to nowhere

In April, 2004, the Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad borrowed some passenger cars from the UP to run an inspection train. The train ran from Eugene south, hauling railroad officials and customers. When they finished, CORP brought the train back to Eugene. Since they were done using it, they disconnected their engine, and went home! That left the train sitting on the mainline, in front of the Amtrak station.  It was a nice looking train, with two open platform observation cars - one on each end - a dome car, and a dining car. I wandered down on my lunch hour and got lots of pictures. I thought it was odd that they left the cars standing alone, blocking the mainline. Guess it didn't bother the UP, though, or they would have moved them.

The cars only sat for the afternoon. Amtrak's Coast Starlight bound for California picked them up after a few hours, and hauled them to points south.

Before the rush

On one of my trips chasing the 4449 out of Portland, I slept in the car, parked in the station lot. We were up late taking night shots of the train, and wanted to be there at first light, so it didn't make sense to drive elsewhere. It allowed us to be at and in the station when nobody else was around. That usually presents some great photo opportunities. We wandered around the interior and the grounds unhindered.

Portland Union Station is a classic "temple of transportation" over 100 years old. While much of the station retains its original look, parts have been changed over the years, to reflect current needs and styles. These cool neon signs, for example. They definitely don't date from the original days. Nor are they from modern times when the passenger trains were fading away. I'd have to guess they were installed in the late 1930s, perhaps as late as the early 50s, when railroads were still trying to make money from operating their own passenger trains. The first diesel powered streamliners arrived in Portland in the late 1930s, with a rush of new modern equipment placed in service after WWII. The neon would have been an added modern touch to go along with the new trains. Fortunately, Amtrak and the city of Portland have seen fit to keep these maintained and operating.

I got boiled taking this one

The temperature is about 100 degrees hotter in this shot from my last posting. It's at Manassus, Virginia just south of Washington DC on a hot, sultry, Virginia night. The Southern Railway excursion train is making it's way back to DC after a long day running through the Kudzu of south central Virginia. The train is using the classic 1950's streamlined passenger locomotives that the Southern was still using in the mid 1980s.

In the 80s, Manassus was still a small town located out in the country. Great place to hang out at the depot, watch the freights roll by, and guzzle cold RC Colas while waiting for this to arrive. We had been up since way early in the morning to chase this train, and welcomed the chance to sit still and rest a bit. Once we got these shots, we were more than ready to retire to our air conditioned motel rooms to catch some sleep and get prepped for more chasing the next day.

Froze my ass off taking this one

It used to be a lot easier to take night shots. There were more local trains, hence more locomotives would be sitting in railyards overnight where I could shoot them. The towns near home were small enough that no one seemed to mind a few crazies setting off flashbulbs in the middle of the night. Very few other people were nutty enough to venture outside on a frigid winter night. The guys I hung with were into this, including the one buddy who was an engineer. It was easy for him to leave his train where it made a good scene for us at the end of his workday.

One of the neat things about nighttime shots is that it doesn't matter what the weather is. Could be cloudy, clear, hot, cold, it didn't matter in the dark. This particular scene was taken on a bitterly cold night at the end of January. The temperature was about zero degrees. Because of the cold the night was crystal clear, zillions of stars were visible. There had been a fresh blanket of snow earlier in the day, so it was clean and relatively undisturbed. Even though I was bundled up almost to the point of not being able to move, by the time our session ended I was frozen to the core. I ran the car heater on high all the way home.

I'm sure happy to not have to put up with that kind of cold anymore.

They're coming to take me away

In 1981 I went on my first real expedition with hardcore railfans. Six of us railnuts piled into a van after work and drove through the night, headed west for Chicago, the rail mecca of North America. I saw a lot of neat stuff for the first time, which included some very busy railroad lines.

I've previously posted something from the triple track commuter zone west of downtown. This is the former CB&Q mainline from downtown to the west. On this line you are almost never out of sight of a train - commuter, freight, or intercity passenger. A lot of 1950s era streamlined passenger locomotives were still in use. The stations are close together for the commuters. Most are in commercial zones, but this picturesque stone building serves a residential area called Highlands.

We spent a pleasant afternoon here watching trains go by. The location is parklike, with grass, trees, and a bridge crossing the tracks. It also was in close proximity to some sort of mental health facility. We joked about it being an insane asylum, and thought we heard screams continually emanating from the place. In the back of our minds we held the thought that someone would come out, see us, and figuring we were escapees haul us back inside. Fortunately that didn't happen, and we were free to continue our adventure.

A different view

The Salt Creek trestle is about 20 miles east of Oakridge, on the way to Willamette Pass. Highway 58 passes right under it. I've posted other shots of the trestle, taken from highway level. That's the standard shot - a train high in the air over the road.

This is what the trestle looks like at track level. Not as impressive. Unless you go right to the edge and look down you can't tell how tall it really is. I suppose before the trees grew up and hid much of it, it's size was more obvious.

On this cloudy, dreary, late May day I captured a northbound just coming off the trestle. In a minute it will be past me, around the curve, and to the siding point of Heather.

A private car, but not one the president is likely to ride in

As I've mentioned before, I don't only take pictures of locomotives and trains when wandering around trackside. Sometimes there aren't any trains around to shoot, and sometimes I see something else that attracts my interest.

In November 2005 the guys and I headed up into the Cascades  to get some winter snow shots. We stopped in Oakridge on the way up, as is our SOP. I happened upon this unique "private car" while wandering around. It certainly would be private! Only room for one passenger, but the view out can't be too good.  It would be funny to see a unit train of a bunch of these hooked together, going down the track!

In actuality, this is exactly what it appears to be, but mounted on a frame with steel wheels. The maintenance crews can hook this to their other equipment and haul it along the track to a work location wherever needed.

4449 at Horse Thief Lake

The city of Portland is the owner of two steam locomotives, donated to them years ago. In 1976, one of them, the 4449, was selected to power the American Freedom Train. The AFT traveled throughout the country with a rolling display of historic documents. The 4449 was rebuilt and made operational to pull that train. Since that time it has pulled many excursions throughout the years.

In July 1998 I caught it at Horse Thief Lake, near Dallesport, Washington in the Columbia River Gorge. It is on it's return trip from Wishram, having gone there from the Rose City earlier in the day. I really, really like this picture, think it is one of my best. The train, reflection on the lake, clouds, and hills surrounding the Columbia all make this a great shot.

Y.A.S. Yet another special

We've had a bunch of special trains through Springfield lately. The Operation Lifesaver in June, the circus train last week, and this past Saturday an Officer Special. This train originated in Oakland California, destined for Eugene. Once in Eugene, the president of the railroad and various other officers were scheduled to wine and dine local politicians and shippers.

I captured the train passing just west of East Springfield behind Rosboro Lumber, one of the last two wood products companies served by rail in Springfield. This is sort of an experiment, to see how well a small point and shoot camera works for shooting train video.

Springfield Junction

Springfield Junction is where the original 1880 mainline to California - the Siskiyou Line - joins the Cascade Line. That line over Willamette Pass was built in the 1920s to bypass the grades and curves of the Siskiyou. At the junction is a "wye" where trains coming off the Siskiyou can head either way onto the main.

I'm standing on the east leg of the wye, whose track you can just see curving into the picture in the lower left hand corner. This leg hasn't been used in some time now, with trains coming off the Siskiyou using the other leg to go into Eugene Yard before changing direction and heading up over the pass. In the background you can see the through truss bridge crossing the Willamette River.

In June, 2010 the UP ran an Operation Lifesaver train through Eugene to promote grade crossing safety. The railroad ran public excursions from Eugene south to Natron (east of Springfield) and north to near Junction City. It was a push - pull operation, with a locomotive on each end to eliminate having to turn the train. The south end had a generic UP locomotive, but the north featured one of their heritage painted units. The 1989 honors the Rio Grande Railroad, who became part of the SP in 1989, which became part of the UP in 1995. Since the train was running back and forth, I just setup at this location where I could capture it coming and going.

Ironically while here I almost saw some people hit by this train. As it was coming off the bridge and speeding towards me, several people ran in front of it. If I had my longer lens on the camera I could have captured their idiocy.

A steamy afternoon

Since the 1960s, the Southern Railway had an active excursion program. Historic diesels and steamers powered a variety of trains that covered the entire system every summer. When they merged with the Norfolk and Western Railroad in 1990 the new entity, the Norfolk Southern Railway continued the tradition.

The N&W was a predominantly coal hauling line, from the mines of Appalachia to tidewater in Virginia. They were one of the last major railroads to give up on steam, not fully dieselizing until a very late date. Because of their dependence on coal,  the N&W continued to develop and build steam locomotives long after other railroads and builders had given up. The J class streamlined units were designed during WWII, with the last batch including the 611 built in 1950. They represented the zenith of steam locomotive engineering. Times were changing, though and even the N&W gave up on steam.The 611 made its last run in 1959 and was donated for display to a museum in Roanoke Virginia in 1960.

Fast forward two decades. In 1981 the Southern leased the 611 from the museum and took it to the railroad shops in Alabama to be rebuilt for excursion service. In 1982 it was running once again, and was one of the biggest stars of the excursion program until the program ended in the mid 90s.

On one of those earliest mainline excursions, I captured the 611 speeding through the Virginia countryside at 70 MPH. My recollection was that it was a hot, steamy, sultry day. The kind of day made for sitting on a porch swing, sipping a Mint Julep. And if we were hot, just imagine what being in the locomotive cab must have been like!

The 611 was made most famous by O Winston Link, in his photo coverage on the last days of steam on the N&W in the 50s.

I'm $3 up on the state of Illinois

In July of 1993 my regular foaming buddy and I headed out west to Chicago for our annual summer expedition. The national convention of the NRHS (National Railway Historical Society) was being held there, and it offered the chance to see not one, not two, but FOUR big steam locomotives running in mainline action, pulling excursions to different points of the compass out of the Windy City.

One of the excursions was down the UP mainline into central Illinois, through a town called St. Anne. St. Anne was the junction between the UP and a shortline the Kankakee, Beaverville and Southern. The KB&S was known for their old, unique locomotives. These were from builder ALCO, who had gone out of business some 20+ years earlier. We decided to spend a day on the KB&S chasing these old oddities before heading for Chicago.

After a fun but hot and sticky day chasing the KB&S local through the cornfields of central Illinois we decided to spend the night in St. Anne. By the time we checked into our motel and had dinner, it was dark. We decided to go back to the junction where we had seen some units parked, and get night shots. It was a good setting for doing so. No one around, no extraneous lights, nothing in the way that we might trip over in the dark while taking our shots. It didn't take long for me to determine why no one was around - the mosquitoes! The little buggers were eating me alive! I must have lost more blood that night that I had in a year's worth of donating to the Red Cross. We finally decided enough was enough, so headed back to our motel room.

On the way there, we figured we better gas up the van, to be ready for action the next morning. When I went in to pay, I decided as a lark to buy a dollar lottery ticket. When I scratched off the covering, I had won - a whole dollar! Couldn't leave it at that, so I reinvested the dollar for another ticket. Another winner! Didn't want to break my winning streak, so cahed it in for yet another ticket. Another winner! By this point, my buddy was impatient to retreat to the cool comfort of the room, so I kept my winnings and we moved on. I guess I'm really not any money ahead, though, since Illinois got it back, and then some, in sales tax.

The last one

The Gulf, Mobile, and Ohio was a midwest line that ran between Chicago and New Orleans, with a branch off to St. Louis. By the time I shot this picture - sometime in the late 1980s - the line had merged with the Illinois Central and been part of the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad for almost 20 years. That this unit still wore the pre merger paint scheme indicated the line wasn't in any great hurry to reimage their locomotives.

My buddy and I had stopped in Centralia, Illinois, home of the ICG shops, on one of our western road trips. We lucked into getting a shot of this train entering the yard. Highly surprised we were to find it in this nearly antique paint scheme, since the ICG had undergone at least two system repaints since the merger. We knew we had come across something quite unique. And, indeed we had. In talking with some of the workers in the yard, we learned that this was the last unit in the GM&O paint, and we had witnessed it's last trip as such. It was due to enter the paint booth directly, and to come out with a fresh coat of black and white.

Besides the historic paint job, we also managed to capture one of the immense concrete coaling towers, used to fuel steam locomotives back in the day. By this time, there were very few of them left standing.

Not your average train

Almost every year, the Union Pacific Railroad runs an inspection special so that managers and such can get out on the railroad and can see the property for themselves. For a number of years in the 1990s and early 2000s they used a special locomotive, the 6936, to pull the train.

The 6936 and three dozen others in this series are called Centennials, because they were built in the late 1960s corresponding with the centennial celebration of the driving of the Golden Spike to complete the line in 1869. These were "double diesels", where two standard locomotives were built on the same chassis. They were and are the most powerful locomotives built, providing 6600 horsepower, compared to a standard unit (at the time) 3300 to 3600. The 6936 is the only one still active, the rest having long ago been scrapped or given to museums. It has been restored and upgraded by the railroad, and is part of their heritage locomotive collection which includes a variety of classic diesels and the two immense steam locomotives, the 3985 and 844.

About 2002, we learned the train was coming through Eugene. Plans included an overnight layover in Oakridge. So, on that hot summer afternoon a bunch of us were on hand for the train's arrival. We wandered around taking pictures and such, trying to stay out of everybody's way and not get kicked off the property. After awhile, someone from the train came out and a conversation was started. Good fortune was with us that day, as the train person (who happened to be one of the big cheeses in charge of things) was very friendly. One thing led to another, and he soon invited us aboard for a guided tour. Very nice! Definitely a cut above your standard passenger train! Since most of the passengers were railroad officials and many overnighted onboard, the train was equipped with deluxe eating facilities, sleeping facilities, offices, and even a gym.

A very good day for us all. Got some good photos - day and night - and a special tour of something few others have seen. Days like this make up for the ones where we come home empty camera-ed, having found nothing to shoot.

Third of three

Continuing with my series on the rail terminals of Chicago, here is Union Station. This is the busiest of the three, being served by Amtrak long distance trains. METRA commuter trains on the former Burlington and Milwaukee Railroad routes west and north of the city also use CUS. Alone among the stations of Chicago, Union has some run through tracks - the others all dead ended.

I'm standing just outside the trainshed, on the south side of the station. It is a busy time of the afternoon, at the beginning of the homebound rush hour. Visable in this shot are three AMTRAK intercity trains. In the foreground is the famous "City of New Orleans" which had arrived from the Big Easy some time before, and is now being taken to the coachyard for servicing. In the middle is another recently arrived trainset being pulled backwards, going to be serviced. On the far track is the "Broadway Limited" departing the Windy City for New York.

Where's John?

We're in the Deschutes River Canyon of central Oregon, at Trout Creek in 2002. The 4449 is pulling an excursion from Portland to Bend and return, via the gorge and Deschutes River. A couple of carloads of my buddies and I decided to run over to get some pictures. We did this independent of each other, knowing that the other was going to be there, but not coordinating our locations or photo efforts.

Our two carloads, plus hundreds of other folks interested in the steam train thought this scenic location with the high trestle would be a good place for photos. It is an uphill grade, so we knew the steamer would be working hard and putting on a good show. The hills were alive with the sound of shutters clicking as the train made its way up the canyon and over the bridge. I was shooting both film and video at the same time, something not easy to do well.

Once the train was past, everyone climbed down the hillsides from their various locations, packed up their gear, and jumped into our cars to head for the next photo location a number of miles down the road. Once we arrived and got setup for the next shot, one of us, I don't remember from which car, thought to ask "where's John?" A dialogue similar to "I thought he was riding with you" "I thought he was with YOU" ensued, until we determined that he was indeed with neither of us. In our haste to depart the previous location, each group had assumed John was with the other. Our car backtracked to the previous location to find John walking down the road, where we picked him up, made a quick U turn, and were on our way to more photos.

You'll notice the annoying buzzing in the audio - that was from a helicopter that followed the train all the way from Portland. None of us shooting video were very happy about that.

The tunnel was too low - but it's a little higher now.

I don't only take pictures of trains when I'm trackside. Sometimes other things require photo capture, too.

One day the guys and I went up the hill. We always stop in Oakridge when we do that, since one never knows what might be sitting in the yard that is of interest. On this particular trip we came across these double stacked containers, that had obviously not cleared the top of the tunnel between Westfir and Oakridge. There are many tunnels on the line between Eugene and Cascade Summit, and none have high enough clearance to allow passage of standard height containers stacked two high. There is a clearance detector just outside of Springfield that is supposed to warn train crews if they have any loads too high to fit through. We don't know the specifics of this incident, but somehow the excess height wasn't noticed till it was too late.

I'm surprised at the limited extent of the damage - I would have thought hitting the tunnel portal would have ripped the tops of the upper containers completely off. We didn't go look at the tunnel to see if it had sustained any damage.

Trainaday extra bonus

This should be a video. If it works, you'll see a clip of Amtrak's mid morning Talgo passing through Halsey, Oregon. The UP freight to the right is the local, waiting to back onto the siding to go to the paper mill.

Rail Hub of America

Chicago was, and still is, the rail hub of America. Almost anyone or anything traveling by rail from east to west or vice versa had to go through the Windy City. Since it was such a hub, during the golden age of railroading the city had six major passenger rail terminals, served by dozens of railroads, big and small. With very few exceptions you had to get yourself and your baggage between the different terminals if you were making a connection.

By 1978 when I made my first railfan trip to that city, there were only three left - my previously blogged Northwestern Station, Union Station (used by Amtrak) and LaSalle Street Station. Earlier on La Salle was used by the mighty New York Central and the Rock Island for their intercity services, but by this late date the station was only used by the nearly bankrupt Rock Island for commuter service.

Since I was in town on a Sunday morning, I knew I wasn't destined to see much if anything at La Salle, since commuter trains only ran sporadically on weekends. Still, I went up to the train platforms to check things out. After awhile of not seeing anything, I decided to move on. As I walked back down into the terminal, I heard the growl of a diesel. I hurried back to the platform, in time to catch this special train coming in. It was a chartered train, the cars all privately owned. The owners had paid the line to take their railcars out for a joy ride around the Chicago area. Pulling the special was #652, a noteworthy locomotive. It was one of the last classic postwar streamlined locomotives still in use. And, it was still painted in the bicentennial paint scheme, created to honor the national celebration of two years earlier.

This was another case of me being in the right place, at the right time. In railfanning, like in so many other things in life, that makes all the difference.

The OTHER End of Track

As a contrast to my posting from a few days back, here is the OTHER end of track. I'm in Northwestern Station, Chicago Illinois. While the western end of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad track in Wyoming was a run down branchline that saw little train action, this end is just the opposite.

Northwestern Station was a busy place! Many dozen commuter trains a day used the facility, hauling thousands of suburban Chicagoans inbound mornings and homeward at night. I wouldn't be surprised if more people rode on the rails in this building in one day than had ridden the Wyoming branch for its entire existence. Until 1971 the station also served long distance intercity trains of the Northwestern, and before 1955 if you boarded a train in Portland for points east you would have ended up here. At the time I took this picture, about 1978, the trains were still privately operated by the Northwestern, using classic equipment from the 1950s. Takeover by the regional transit authority, METRA was a few years away.

The actual end of C&NW tracks was a few feet behind the last car on this train. This was as far as you could go on the system.

Bridge Over Troubled Waters

My buddy and I tried to plan some flexibility into our semi-annual long weekend railfan expeditions. We'd always have a backup destination. If non photogenic weather was predicted for our primary target, we'd divert to somewhere else.

Shepardstown, West Virginia was one of those alternate destinations. Shepardstown was home to this wonderfully photogenic high bridge over the Potomac River, 50 miles or so west of Washington DC. It was a place that required patience, though, as its photo merits were contradicted by its lack of train action. This was on the line between Hagerstown, Maryland and Roanoke, Virginia, and used jointly by Conrail and the Norfolk Southern Railway to bypass the congestion around DC. Even so, the line wasn't busy, and we planned an extended stay when we came here. At least there was a place to hang out - a park was right on the bluff of the West Virgina side, which provided a clear view of the bridge, and lots of grass and shade trees to lounge under.

One year we had planned on driving west, into Ohio. As the time for our departure got close, the forecast called for torrential rains over the Buckeye State and western Pennsylvania. The forecast map showed clear weather around DC, so we headed south instead. And rain it did further west - take a look at the mud swollen river under the train. The water was much higher than we had seen it on previous trips. There was a road that ran nearly at water level on the other side of the river - it was completely inundated this time.

An added bonus to Shepardstown was finding the Rumsey Monument (in the park we hung out in) and learning a little known factoid of American history. According to the monument, James Rumsey was the inventor of the steamship and demonstrated it in the Potomac River here, some 20 years before Robert Fulton launched his in New York harbor..