Chasing NKP 2-8-4 765
on WSOR to Janesville Wis.
June 12, 2016

Photos by Dave Ingles

This one-day excursion — named "The Varsity" for an old Milwaukee Road Chicago–Madison, Wis., train on this route — on a Sunday, took place the day after the engine was under steam on display at Franklin Park, Ill., Railroad Days (near O’Hare airport). Tickets were sold by the 765’s Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society. The trip, on tracks owned by Metra and Watco’s Wisconsin & Southern, was unusual in that Amtrak was not involved — I believe the insurance of Iowa Pacific, which owns several short lines, some with tourist trains, provided the coverage — and so 765 had no “required” diesel behind it. All cars, arranged by FWRHS and coming from its own fleet, plus from Norfolk Southern, Iowa Pacific, and some NRHS chapters, were either self-contained for HEP power or were dependent on FWRHS’s power car.

Amtrak “would not allow” 765 into its Chicago Union Station – possibly an insurance thing since Amtrak was not involved, since MILW 4-8-4 261 has operated into CUS — so the train loaded at Metra’s Glenview North station (in The Glen at Glenview, the planned community on the site of the old Glenview Naval Air Station), which has a huge parking lot. Someone was thinking! On Metra’s main line up to Rondout, aka CP’s “C&M” (Chicago-Milwaukee) Sub, 765 got to run track speed and reportedly hit 72 mph! Alas, on the eastern end of the WSOR, beyond Fox Lake, Ill., track conditions often dictated only 10 mph, tho on the Janesville end, 30 to 35 mph was allowed, and reached.

Carol and I left home in Waukesha about 8:30 under a clear sky, and on I-43 southward talked by phone with longtime friend (1959) Bob Anderson, who with wife Judy was en route from their winter home in Ocala, Fla., to their “glorified travel trailer” summertime home north of the Twin Cities. (Their son and daughter both live and work in Minnesota; Bob, a native of Michigan’s “U.P.,” is a Michigan Tech alum and is retired from the mining industry on “da Rainch” -- the iron range,” as in Mesabi). Bob reported a wall cloud and hard rain in Beloit, where they were overnighting Sat. and Sun., and from I-43, the sky did look dark to the west. We ran under cloud cover before leaving I-43 but never encountered rain, but the westbound chase from where we picked it up east of Walworth was under dark skies (ISO 1600 for the digital, f 2.8 @ 1/125 at worst for the slides). Skies lightened up somewhat by Janesville, and slowly improved eastbound until finally there was some sun for our last shot east of Zenda at the Illinois state line, and we drove home under clear skies, so apparently the clearing was moving west, just not fast enough for this train. Many of my dark digitals are, in fact, disappointing, but you’ll see some here anyway.

The train consist was 765, its N&W canteen, no diesel, and 18 cars, first FWRHS’s crew/tool car, then premium class cars forward, coaches to the rear, with a just plain coach vestibule on the back end. Open Dutch doors were allowed, but everyone had to stay on the train in Janesville. Three domes were among the premium class: two Iowa Pacific full-length dome lounges (Scenic View in IC colors, Prairie View in its original GN livery), and the PV ex-NP dome coach (formerly The Observatory, I believe), now with “Northern Pacific” on the letterboard, CB&Q initials at each end, and a new name, Stampede Pass.

We exited I-43 at Delavan west (Hwy. X, old 15), went south on Hwy. K, checked out a couple of crossings — lots of people gathered but no train — then headed east, toward it, and west of Walworth we ran into Bob Gallegos, who reported the train was just out of Sugar Grove, Ill. We checked out the Walworth depot area, where the train was to stop briefly, and zillions of people were there including friend Mike McBride, of Dixon, Ill. Turns out he was chasing with Mike Schafer, Rick Woods (in Woods’ car), and Barb Boyd Fane, tho we never saw any of them. We went on east for our first shots, and wound up with 11 encounters:

Devils Hill Road, 9:50, very disappointing, 10 mph at best . . . “chuff … chuff … chuff … chuff,” in slow motion.

Walworth depot, 10:05. The engine stopped just east of the station, a perfect spot for posed photos. Despite the hordes, I took a couple shots from the car on what was at the moment a one-lane street. Trees obscure the west-side station sign, which is intact. I shouted at Mike McBride from our van, and he “posed.”

Brick Church Road, 10:16, another ho-hum shot on this straight, treed-in line, but with no sun we could shoot from either side.

O’Riley Road, 10:45. This is the first crossing inside Rock County. We were taking back roads, so here, all but 3 or 4 people present (and there weren’t many) were locals; we’d checked out other places, but too much of a tree tunnel, and I couldn’t join any hordes on overhead bridges, such as at Bardwell on Hwy. X, since I can’t “stand around waiting” anymore without some support.

East Avalon, 11:00. We made it from O’Riley to Route 140 south of Avalon, but coming over the hill northward I could see we’d not make it to the crossing in time, too much of a crowd anyway, so I turned right on Bradford Town Hall Road and shot digital only, slightly downhill across the fields. With the dark weather, they’re not super-sharp, alas. Sun would’ve helped immensely here.

Wheeler Pit, 11:10. Turns out the Andersons were among those at the 140 crossing. We spotted their white van with Minnesota plates (cheaper than Florida’s) as we drove by, and exchanged waves. At Wheeler Pit, MP 95 from Chicago on this old Milwaukee Road “J line,” the site of the short-lived “East Janesville” Amtrak stop along Hwy. O, I parked just in time to position myself at the Milepost 95 sign for a 50mm slide, and used the telephoto zoom again for the digitals. The Andersons drove up at the last second, having spotted our car among the many in the “old Amtrak parking lot” (now just gravel) and made a U-turn. Bob then followed me into town.

Rock River bridge in Janesville, 11:23. We got there late, consequently had to shoot it on the bridge from a point where you can’t see the water. The engine pulled up to Pearl St. on the southeast leg of the wye, pointed east, and stopped, facing the crossing and the roundhouse. This is where the servicing was performed.

WSOR Janesville roundhouse area, 12:25. With Bob and Judy following us, we passed on “gawking at the servicing among the hordes” and adjourned to the Culver’s on West Court St. for a quick lunch and nice visit with them. At 12:20 we thought it was time to see how much progress had been made — the alleged schedule called for a 12:30 departure, but they had arrived about 15 minutes late on a very padded schedule. We were just in time, as when we arrived, 765 was pulling the train pulling forward to clear the switch by the roundhouse and Pearl St. in order to back west toward Monroe for the 2nd move of the turnaround, and so we drove down onto WSOR property north of the roundhouse, apparently OK with everyone as long as no one crossed a track. It was still cloudy dark, but shots from the north were OK, tho too dark for my liking. We found Jeff Madden and his son Terry there. Two WSOR SD40s, 4010/4030 (the anniversary unit), were south of 765’s track, so I made sure to photo 765 passing in front of the host railroad’s units. I thought it interesting that the Pennsylvania Railroad made its appearance here on three of the coaches. PRR did once serve Wisconsin, you know, with a freight office in Milwaukee, its cars coming over from Michigan on Grand Trunk Western’s carferries. PRR owned no track in the Badger State.

Janesville, former C&NW crossing, 12:48. Eastbound, we contented ourselves with 4 spots, counting 765 backing past the roundhouse in the previous photos. I wanted the train on the S-curve passing thru the now-closed GM plant complex in Janesville, so we stationed ourselves (joined by the Andersons now for all spots) where the former C&NW city belt line crossed the MILW J-Line. The diamond is out, tossed aside under a pile of “crap,” but the spot turned out OK, and since it was still in yard limits, the train was creeping. The closed GM plant is in the background.

Avalon, 1:22. Lots of chaser traffic on O and then U.S. 14 put us next at Avalon, but I’d been by the elevator a few months ago and so knew what I wanted. I dived off 140 to trackside, and we positioned ourselves on the north side of the tracks, east of the elevators, with Gavalon ex-BN SD40-2 7161 in the shot. We then made for Walworth, but knowing there was no good depot shot eastbound, we went on east, as his train speed west of Walworth was 30 mph or better (I timed him at 33 as he cleared yard limits at Wheeler Pit) on a ruler-straight railroad most of the way, and I wanted to get thru Walworth ahead of him.

State Line, Routes Wis. 120 and Ill. 47, 2:55. There were so many chasers, and it was still cloudy, so I made for my last planned spot, the “State Line Road” view, which overlooks a long fill beginning with the highway overpass and has virtually no trees or bushes for half a train-length east of the overpass. We sat there for maybe 45 minutes, visiting with the Andersons, and the sun gradually came out full. The plan had been that if this State Line shot had gone ETTS on us — my last shots there were years ago of the two IC-painted WICT F7s and the 5 yellow shortline boxcars on WICT’s debut — we’d double back to Zenda, 2 miles west. The train finally came by, and after it passed, Bob & Judy and Dave & Carol parted.

First we went back to Zenda, shot the station sign, and saw that the one grade-crossing view to the west had only a nice, mowed lawn from a side road up to the tracks, which would’ve been great, but we hadn’t wanted to risk both Zenda and State Line, too close together, even tho the train was plodding along with only occasional smoke. In retrospect, the State Line shot with digitals was not as good as Zenda would’ve been. These digitals at State Line (we were parked on the actual State Line Road) are cropped from a 50mm lens view, because I used the 200mm telephoto zoom lens here on the slide camera. Denny Hamilton shot at Zenda and said about 100 people were in the photo line at the road; Jeff and Terry Madden shot at the station sign. Trivia item: When Amtrak’s short-lived train from Chicago to East Janesville/Wheeler Pit was in operation (aka the “Heifer Zephyr”), Zenda was a station stop, but Amtrak’s sign read “Lake Geneva,” the resort town which in reality is a few miles north. At Zenda we also briefly waved at the Nelson twins, Mark and Mike, from Oregon, Wis., who were getting ready to leave (other chasers were long gone --- this must’ve been the Nelsons’ last shot), and we also shot a surprising, to me, Zenda resident: a GE 25-ton 4-wheel diesel lettered for Colt Industries FM Engine division. (Turns out Denny Hamilton and his older grandson Dexter got “rare mileage” on the “Zenda Terminal,” as the engineer of the 25-tonner offered them back-and-forth cab rides after the 765 chasers departed.)

We came home via Route 120, stopped at the Elegant Farmer at Mukwonago (Muck-WAHN-uh-go) to shoot East Troy’s two 4400-series Chicago CTA L cars ready to depart for East Troy at 4 pm, made a "necessary" stop at the Mukwonago Culver’s, and came on home, tho we then killed 25 minutes at Grand Ave. in town waiting on a CN southbound. (Brian Schmidt had alerted us to new LED signals in place at the interlocking, but the old northbound home signal was still in use and the new one turned aside, so with a clear board southbound, I wanted my last slide on the day’s roll of film to show that status in case they replaced it soon). I hadn't been by there in two weeks, what with my 10-day rare-mileage BNSF trip (see separate file) and then having done no local shooting. Basically with 765, I shot 1 roll of slides and 40-some digital “keepers.” All in all, it was a worthwhile day close to home. Soon the CN train came by, led by a former Santa Fe “Warbonnet” GE, to end the day.

 
 

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