Richard's American Train Adventures

[Jordan]

Don't suppose I'll bump into the joker who saw the rise in the roof recently and printed off that DO NOT HUMP sticker. Keep 'em coming Richard

I wonder why it has that sign on it? Seems unusual for a boxcar, maybe it's on a dedicated traffic flow that has rather fragile cargo...?

 

[JasonD]

As usual I thought I was going to learn nearly everything about Railbox by pressing a few buttons ... then Google said "OK human, try this then you can justify making yet another cup of tea":

RAILBOX - Trains Magazine - Trains News Wire, Railroad News, Railroad Industry News, Web Cams, and Forms

Trains magazine offers railroad news, railroad industry insight, commentary on today's freight railroads, passenger service (Amtrak), locomotive technology, railroad preservation and history, railfan opportunities (tourist railroads, fan trips), and great railroad photography.

cs.trains.com

 

[richard carr]

After Lima, it was time to start heading west, the plan was to avoid the freeway wherever possible and stop off at a few railway spots of interest. The first one was going to be Kokomo Indiana.
Kokomo is know for having some old style 2 position signals at a crossing in the middle of the town. There is a large grain elevator there and there is street running to access it. I wasn;t expecting to see anything moving but it was on the way.




The first thing we came across was this caboose, then a bit further along the street was the signal.





The crossing it protected has gone very recently, as I watched a video of it in action that was filmed earlier this year.

So after this little stop we headed further west back to Illinois, stopping off to see the KBS (Kankakee Beaverville and Southern).
Again nothing was happening but we did see one of their locos parked up at the depot.



According to their website, these locos are GP38-2Ms, they have 6 of them. They used to have a few Alcos and were one of the last railroads to operate them on a regular basis. I'm not sure what the M means has happened to these locos, they are still 2000 HP but they have gained an additional cooling fan at the back.

Then it was on to Elmhurst in greater Chicago where we staying the night before going to the Illinois Railway Museum the next day. There is a decent Indian restaurant in Elmhurst, very close to the Metra station, so we had dinner there before watching a UP stack arrive from the west with 8 locos powering it.

 

[Jordan]

stopping off to see the KBS (Kankakee Beaverville and Southern).

The sort of outrageous name you just couldn't make up!! Or would receive lots of guffawing, hooting, derisive laughter from "UK only" punters if you did, & exhibited it....

 

[Big Train James]

So after this little stop we headed further west back to Illinois, stopping off to see the KBS (Kankakee Beaverville and Southern).
Again nothing was happening but we did see one of their locos parked up at the depot.

According to their website, these locos are GP38-2Ms, they have 6 of them. They used to have a few Alcos and were one of the last railroads to operate them on a regular basis. I'm not sure what the M means has happened to these locos, they are still 2000 HP but they have gained an additional cooling fan at the back.

It's the other way around, the unit started as a NYC gp40, hence the three radiator fans, then to Penn Central, Conrail, CNW, and ultimately KBS. Along the way it was (M)odified to derate the prime mover, which probably means removing the turbo actually, and was switched to a paper air filter box common on gp38's and gp38-2"s. The -2 designation suggests that the unit has also had electrical work done to upgrade it with modern modular electronics.

 

[richard carr]

I have been back in Chicago this week, and went exploring on Wednesday and Thursday lunchtimes.
I went for a walk from our office in the Loop on La Salle street, it's about 10 minutes to the Bloomer Chocolate factory, they normally have a tank car or 2 parked up, but there were none either day. When I first started travellling to Chicago 25 years ago I wouldn't have ventured any further than there, but in recent years the whole area has moved very up market with lots of nice new apartment blocks going up.
So I have ventured a couple of blocks further north, the brick building int he background is the Chicago Sun/ Times printing presses, they still get newsprint delivered in boxcars






A close up of the switch.


I'm now looking the other way back towards the city centre, the line off to the left runs down to the CNW river bridge, that on the right to the Bloomer Chocolate factory.



The factory is the building in the background, you can see the name of it in letters at the top left of the image.



So all of this is about 15 minutes walk from down town. One day I will catch them delivering the tank car.

Here's the CNW bridge, it's permanently up so not a got idea to travel along that line.






Instead of going north if you head west you can follow the tracks out of Union station on the UP mainline.
This goes through what was the meat processing district when cattle were shipped to Chciago for slaughter.
Now its new apartment, office and lots of restaurants and quite safe to walk about.

This line has received the new SD70 MAC H locos














All photos with my phone !

 

[timbowales]

I bet if we made an accurate model of that switch everything would fall off on it!
Nice to see the old Milwaukee Hiawatha on that Metra loco.

 

[Dog Star]

I bet if we made an accurate model of that switch everything would fall off on it!

"Time to challenge Jordan!" ....are you ready for this Jordan? @Jordan

 

[simond]

When I saw the photos, I thought he’d gone full size…

 

[Jordan]

I bet if we made an accurate model of that switch everything would fall off on it!

"Time to challenge Jordan!" ....are you ready for this Jordan?

To be honest, judging by the bushes and overgrowth covering the spurs beyond that switch, I don't think that rail (mis)alignment has been an issue in recent years....

When I saw the photos, I thought he’d gone full size…

Thank you!!

 

[richard carr]

I managed to finish work on Thursday so I picked up a car early on Friday morning and headed off to meet Jim at Deshler around the 2pm mark.

I made good progress and got to Elkhart for 9:40. I was hoping that the Elkhart and Western would be operating, but not on that Friday. I then set off down to Goshen and caught the local pushing 2 gondolas and 3 hopper cars south, with the caboose leading of course. However I ran parallel to it for a while but I couldn't get far enough ahead to stop and get the camera out before it went past!

I went shopping in Walmart especially for Peanut Butter M&Ms, by the time I got down to Goshen the local was switching the gondolas all hidden out of site. I carried on west to Kendalville, again hoping to see the local train there, but instead of a GP9 I found this.



A GP40-2 looking very well worn.
It was picking up 5 cars, presumably heading back to Elkhart, I can;t think of any other logical place to go but I have never seen a train like this in Elkhart.



The track is very Jordanish, the video really shows this off.



Here he is waiting to join the mainline, pointing west, the direction of Elkhart.

I continued east as it looked like it was going to sit there for quite a while.

Passing over a grade crossing in Butler I spotted a train to the north, so a quick U turn and I was back to catch this, coming from the east.




and this is the train I saw on the Wabash line witing to head south to Fort Wayne



Thisis the crossing, without a train.



This is looking south, with the main east/west NS line running across the photo.

 

[richard carr]

After the stop at Butler, I drove on across state route 6, though Edgerton, it looked a good place to stop on the way back as I was running late now.

I arrived at Deshler about 2:30pm and it was another busy afternoon. Unfortunately I only took video that will post up in a day or 2.

So for the next day Jim and I decided to go to Berea, this is about a 90 minute drive from where I was staying in Perrysburg (The southern edge of Toledo) and is on the edge of Cleveland in North East Ohio. It's another busy place with Norfolk Southern and CSX.



We heard a couple of trains as we were approaching, but this was the first one we saw, they then came thick and fast on the NS lines

Then we finally got one on CSX, then it poured with rain and we headed off for a great pizza lunch !



We went back after lunch but soon decided to start making our way back via Greenwich and Fostoria, a good 21/2 hours of driving.

Greenwich was a bit disappointing we seemed to have arrived in the mid afternoon lull, but eventually got a couple of trains, all on video.

Driving back to Fostoria we saw 3 CSX train parked waiting to pass through, which meant an NS train must be using the crossing, we didn;t see the locos on the point but we did catch the DPU







Here's a stack train that we also saw at Greenwich. It even had some of these old style well cars that Atlas make.

 

[timbowales]

I managed to finish work on Thursday so I picked up a car early on Friday morning and headed off to meet Jim at Deshler around the 2pm mark.

I made good progress and got to Elkhart for 9:40. I was hoping that the Elkhart and Western would be operating, but not on that Friday. I then set off down to Goshen and caught the local pushing 2 gondolas and 3 hopper cars south, with the caboose leading of course. However I ran parallel to it for a while but I couldn't get far enough ahead to stop and get the camera out before it went past!

I went shopping in Walmart especially for Peanut Butter M&Ms, by the time I got down to Goshen the local was switching the gondolas all hidden out of site. I carried on west to Kendalville, again hoping to see the local train there, but instead of a GP9 I found this.

View attachment 218784

A GP40-2 looking very well worn.
It was picking up 5 cars, presumably heading back to Elkhart, I can;t think of any other logical place to go but I have never seen a train like this in Elkhart.

View attachment 218785

The track is very Jordanish, the video really shows this off.

View attachment 218786

Here he is waiting to join the mainline, pointing west, the direction of Elkhart.

I continued east as it looked like it was going to sit there for quite a while.

Passing over a grade crossing in Butler I spotted a train to the north, so a quick U turn and I was back to catch this, coming from the east.


View attachment 218787

and this is the train I saw on the Wabash line witing to head south to Fort Wayne

View attachment 218789

Thisis the crossing, without a train.

View attachment 218790

This is looking south, with the main east/west NS line running across the photo.

I'm intrigued to see traffic cones in use on a railroad?

 

[richard carr]

Here's the first video from this trip the GP40 at Kendalville.

 

[Jordan]

Here's the first video from this trip the GP40 at Kendalville.

Short Line railroading with a Class 1 loco!! Fantastic stuff. And - there's just no equivalent in the UK at all.

 

[richard carr]

Sunday was the long drive back to Chicago, just under 300 miles depending on the exact route. I was on the late flight so I didn't need to drop off the car until 6pm. I did though want to watch the Austrian GP before I left which didn't start until 9am Ohio time, and it was worth watching !

So the plan was to head to Edgerton as that looked like a good place for video and photos on the Norfolk Southern mainline between Toledo and Chicago. It took about 90 minutes to drive there.



This is an eastbound manifest, this is actually the rear loco pushing.



Coal empties heading back to the powder river basin



The Canadian Pacific 2 bay hopper train, probably fracking sand, it usually has CP power but today both locos were KCS.



I spent about 90 minutes there and saw a couple more trains. I then carried on to Kendalville. Nothing was moving of course but the Gp9 was parked up by the Kraft Heinz factory.






After this I stopped off in Goshen (near Elkhart) and saw a couple more trains go bye, it was then time to head off towards Chicago. The usual traffic problem is where I80, I90 and I94 all meet up around the bottom of the lake, today was no exception. So I decided to follow sat nav, this took me along I90 towards Chicago then took me off in Hammond, it then took me past Burnham yard for the South Shore Railway, with lots of their orange locos parked up. Then across 130th Street to go under the former Illinois Central mainline onto 127th street to I 57 southbound. A route that passed numerous railways, but I doubt if I had stopped and got out you would ever have seen me again.

It was then back to O Hare and another trip was over.

 

[Jordan]

The Canadian Pacific 2 bay hopper train, probably fracking sand, it usually has CP power but today both locos were KCS

It's funny isn't it, you'd think covered hoppers would be pretty standard within a particular type - like curve sided ones here, but isn't there some design variety in this train?? From the sill depth to top bracing, and even the ride heights vary considerably between similar ones, such as hoppers 5 to 9, and also further back.
Who said unit trains are boring??!!

 

[richard carr]

The other thing to note is all the different shades of grey.

 

[JasonD]

Oh Richard ... memory jogger extraordinaire

I visited Martin Venn (anyone else remember him working in Bernie Victor's RR import shops in Islington?) when he'd moved to Chicago in the 70s ... "take it in turns to take photos, one of us stays in the car with the engine running".

"If I go south on the elevated bit of the New York State Thruway above Albany I can get off at Kenwood Yard and scour the D&H Yard ... oh damn, there it is, missed it, I'll come off next exit and go back on the city streets. Lights on red, stop Jason ... what are these guys doing sitting on the sidewalk? Oh drinking out of brown paper bags ... a couple coming over ... change lights CHANGE."

Polished off most of a 3lb bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms watching ... um ... er ... first film in the Jurassic Park series(??) in a hotel, well they were definitely M&M PBs. They're apparently law-breakers or just too dangerous to be sold freely over here (the blue ones??).

Jason

 

[Lancastrian]

They're apparently law-breakers or just too dangerous to be sold freely over here (the blue ones??).

Jason

Law breakers? They have nothing compared to those two in the TV adverts...affairs with married women, killing snowmen in front of roaring fires!