New Camera Debut
Western Springs, Ill.
March 24, 2015

by Dave Ingles

After difficulty in pinning down a day of mutual availability, Randy Olson of NW Indiana and I agreed to meet at Western Springs, Ill., on the BNSF Chicago–Aurora “Raceway” for him to hand over to me the D700 Nikon he had replaced with a D750. We arrived at the suburb’s depot — chosen for its proximity to the Tri-State Tollway, which we both used for the trip — around 11:30 a.m., and BNSF and Metra came through with the typical midday “parade.” In fact, the first two trains I photographed were done only as slides: BNSF 7003/CITX 1212 West, trilevel auto-rack (or “vehicle”) train at 1153 and an eastbound double-stack 4 minutes later with 5789/6513 up front and DPUs 8204/7380 on the rear.

After making a few “test” shots to get the feel of the camera, certainly havier than my old D70 but with a much larger viewing screen, the “first D700 train” came by at 12:24 pm with 8933/7900 on a general merchandise consist. You’ll notice the snow cover, left over from a surprise late-March storm to add to Chicago’s winter woes. It was cold, so we kept close to our cars, parked right by the “inbound” commuter platform and hence close to the tracks and offering some shelter. But at least the sun was out!

A train of what I presume were empty gons, reporting marks MGPX 500- 600- and 700-series and apparently new, showed  up shortly on Track 1, at 12:34, with units 9648/6390, and once his power was across the I-294 Tri-State bridge , he met an eastbound coal train on Track 2 near the Highlands station in Hinsdale, which passed us at 12:36 with units 9157/9767.

Metra finally got in the act with train 1231 at 1:05 pm with 6 cars behind F40M 205. This is the 12:30 Chicago departure, the first in 2 hours, a sometimes agonizing gap in the line’s mostly hourly daytime schedule on weekdays. Some of the old Burlington 700-series cars still serve, and many have had “BNSF Railway” or “Burlington” re-applied to the old letterboads. The “Land of the Burlingtons” knows its history!

That concluded our “Raceway” activity. We searched Hinsdale for a Greek restaurant I remembered from past years, but it’s apparently gone now, so we settled for a McDonald’s Randy knew of, and then went our separate ways for home. I drove straight up the Tollway into Wisconsin and then, noting Amtrak trains were to be coming on the parallel CP’s C&M Sub, went over to the tracks. As I neared them on Hwy. 165, I saw Chicago-bound Hiawatha #336 zoom under the road ahead of me --- normal consist, no loss. So I drove up to Bain, where UP usually stables big power while coal trains are unloaded at the nearby power plant. A trio of 5555/6581/5921, all kind of grubby, was parked on the Farm Sub connection’s extra track, and the “four 5s” rated a frame only for its road number.

I knew about the situation of #8, the eastbound Empire Builder, so I drove north, aiming for Sturtevant to intercept him, as well as Hiawatha #337. Road construction and a slow truck ahead of me stalled my attempt to go further, so in frustration, I turned east on the next road, which turned out to be County E, which intersects the CP at the hamlet of Somers, site of a “gantry” style dragging equipment and high-wide detector. As I approached the tracks, #337 zipped past me, another normal consist of zero-for-two on those. I decided to wait out #8 here, and ultimately chose the “shady side” as brush obscured the west-side view and the sun was behind some high, hazy clouds. No. 8 came by at 4:20, engines 200/119, usual 11 cars, and after telephoto digital images, I finished the slide roll in my N90 with a 50mm shot on it — I’d taken tne N90 along for a few BNSF Raceway shots, in case something extraordinary happened by (and while that didn’t happen, the sunlight and train quantity helped me all but finish the slide roll).

As I turned around to look south and cross the road — SURPRISE — here came No. 7, which I’d not bothered to check on, figuring him on-time and long gone from these parts. Nope, he was about 1 hour 20 minutes late, engines 131/151, so I rapped off a few frames with the D700 on the meet, officially also at 4:20. This concluded my photography for the day.
(To continue with March 2015 local action, return to that file March 2015 Local Action)

 

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