UP Safety Train Weekend
in Illinois, June 7-8, 2013

by Dave Ingles

Union Pacific's traveling "Safety Train," an Operation Lifesaver extension, headed north from the St. Louis area to Chicagoland in early June for shuttle trips on June 7 and 8. On Friday, June 7, the train made a round trip from Chicago Passenger Terminal to Harvard and back, identical to the longest Metra runs on the UP Northwest Line. With the shutdown of GM's big auto plant in Janesville, Wis., the two daily freights have been cut to a single train per day, and i'm not sure it runs 7 days a week, probably less. So only the Metra schedules, basically, had to be avoided. Because of ATS (Automatic Train Stop) signal requirements, two freight engines bracketed the consist of a Heritage unit on each end and three passenger cars.

On Saturday, June 8, the train — sans "signal units" -- was based at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union on the West Chicago-Rockford branch (key customer: Chrysler assembly plant in Belvidere, my wife Carol's hometown) and ran three shuttles to a point just east of Belvidere. The train consist was, east to west: C&NW Heritage unit 1995; dome lounge Columbine; coach City of Salina; business car Feather River; and MoPac Heritage unit 1982. IRM designated Saturday as "UP Family Day," and employees got in either free or at a discount. The UP train originated the shuttles at the museum's station and used the connection track at the west end of the museum's 5-mile main line.

Carol and I drove down to Harvard on Friday for a few token shots. We got there in plenty of time, rendezvousing with friend Rick Moser, who drove up from Naperville, to shoot westbound Metra train 615 with six cars behind F40 153 at 1:14 pm at the far east grade crossing in Harvard.

The Metra train left town as No. 646 at 1:36 (no digital photos taken), in time to be out of the way for the Safety Special, which arrived at 1:49. Because of signal requirements on the line, two of the resident freight engines, GP60s 1361 and 1362, were ahead of the Heritage units. These GP60s are two of the three on UP that are ex-Rio Grande, one of which operated here for a long time in D&RGW black and gold with UP "patched" numbers.

The special parked on the spur of the old "KD" line to Rockford for the crew to change ends, and returned to the Metra station area for a moment. The KD is still in for 3 or 4 miles over to Chemung, the next town, whose grain elevator owns one unit (an EMD switcher still in "Chicago Great Western" red and maroon from its days on the Wisconsin & Calumet) and operates the line as the Chicago-Chemung Railway. The special was in the depot at  2 p.m.

After its departure, Carol and I moseyed on back home, and photographed a bit of local action, which will be found in the separate "Summer 2013 Local Action" section on the website.

The next day, Saturday, Carol and I drove straight back down to Union to photograph the first shuttle. Unfortunately the sun was out and straight down the track. After swinging thru the museum parking lot for a couple of quick snaps, we watched the train move west to the mainline switch at 10:33, and quickly we set up in the village of Union, just west of the museum, for our first run-by, at 10:38.

Traffic on U.S. 20, and in Marengo, was terribly congested, but we wanted to see if the train would actually go into Belvidere, which it did not, on any of the 3 runs. After seeing it stopped to change ends -- a fortunate sighting west of Garden Prairie where it happened we could glimpse the track from U.S. 20 -- we rushed back east and up the last side road before Garden Prairie for this run-by of it returning to the museum.

While the Safety Train was back at the museum to unload and reload for the 2nd shuttle, we snapped a few of the IRM train it had running for UP employees: C&NW SD40-2 6847 and IRM's "heavyweight train" of its CB&Q RPO and three Lackawanna suburban cars, a combine and two coaches. We photographed it leaving the west end at Olson Road at 11:45, and then out east at Johnson Siding at 11:52, backing into the siding to meet an electric train. We were surprised to not see running the C&NW F7 411 and bilevel suburban train cars, although they would be out for "Diesel Days" five weeks later (see separate file of photos on this website). Meantime, the Safety Train had left on its second shuttle.

Not wanting to fight Marengo traffic anymore, we set up at Dunham Road between Union and Marengo for an eastbound Safety Train run-by, which occurred at 12:12 p.m.

I was trying to concentrate on the MoPac Heritage unit vs. the C&NW one, which we have seen plenty of in our home area, as UP does try to keep these units in their "home territory" as much as possible. So, we went into the IRM parking lot for a photo proving the train loaded at "East Marengo" station of IRM, at 12:24. Then we set up in  Union again for the last shuttle departure, which occurred at 12:37.

We were basically done with this train, but we kept an eye out for it, and when we saw a few cars at the crossing as we looked at Epworth Road, where U.S. 20 veers away from the track east of Belvidere, we went down there for a final sequence, at 1 p.m. sharp. I took a digital only going-away, showing the MoPac unit.

Carol and I then went over to Rockford, fighting construction on I-90 the Tollway (Hint: stay off I-90, O'Hare to Rockford, all summer!) to have lunch at Steak n Shake, then drove back and looked around Belvidere, at her homes and haunts as a youth, and meandered on back home to Waukesha, our objective of photographing the UP Safety Train successfully completed.

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