Chicago to La Plata, MO
April 16, 2015

by David Ingles

Otto Dobnick and I began the trip on Hiawatha #334 from Milwaukee to Chicago, and after a routine trip -- other than friend and railfan T.J. Van Haag, also of Waukesha, being our conductor — went to the First-Class Lounge in Union Station.

We were among folks who got early boarding for those riding the PVs on the back of #3, the Southwest Chief. In fact, Otto was upstairs getting us a McDonald’s lunch when the call came, so we wound up lunching w/ Mickey-D food on-board. The sleeper lounge J. Pinckney Henderson was the first of 3 PVs behind the Superliners, then our group’s Frisco sleeper Cimarron River and business car Caritas. Riding with Clark Johnson & Co. (High Iron Travel, a subsidiary of Iowa Pacific Holdings) out to Albuquerque to join the AAPRCO special was done by me for two reasons: I don’t fly anymore, and having an open platform on the back of the “Chief” out on busy BNSF lines easily beat being holed up in an Amtrak Superliner room or lounge seat out to New Mexico the next day. I took advantage of that position and the day’s good weather to begin the odyssey, shooting many digital images (but no slides) this day. We left at 3 p.m, on time, and this first photo is as we swept around the curve at 16th St. or so to get on the “Raceway” to “Everywhere West” in old CB&Q terms, looking back at some of the afternoon “dinkys” waiting to take commuters home.

The scene at Union Avenue interlocking was bereft of trains.

With all these old trackside warehouses and such being converted to apartments or condos, I wonder if the new occupants include any railfans – look at the view of the BNSF main line and the leads from UP’s ex-C&NW Global 2 intermodal facility, where UPY GP15 742 is parked. Soon, near Halsted St., we passed a parked empty tank-car train, BNSF 9741 West.

At Western Ave., this stacker, UP 5702 West with an NS trailing unit, was waiting to leave the B&OCT line for the BNSF main.

The “whoosh” or “whump” as you pass, at speed, over all these girder-laden street overpasses on Chicago’s West Side has always been, for me, a notable sound. The elevation is the result of a Chicago ordinance mandating grade separation of railroads from streets enacted getting close to a century ago. Think of the exit routes from Chicago, and all but a few are that way, the exceptions being main lines beyond what were then the city limits. Examples are the Cardinal route on the old C&EI, the Milwaukee Amtrak route at Edgebrook, and lines in Hegewisch, the far southeastern Chicago neighborhood.

The CTA’s Pink Line to Cicero, in “my day” the Douglas Park L, crosses over the BNSF Raceway at a very oblique angle. Soon we saw two tank-car trains, NS 9476 West on our line, and at Cicero where the Belt Railway of Chicago goes overhead, another up there, plus an empty-well “stack train” on our south track.

The next 4 images were as we passed Cicero (or “Clyde”) Yard, now an intermodal facility. The CSX units are by the east yard tower, across from the recently refurbished Metra Cicero stop. The fourth image shows CN’s former IC Iowa Division overhead, this moment absent of any train. Keep in mind these were all made at “track speed” while sitting on a chair outside on the platform.

Next was Berwyn, and I photographed the downtown depot, but that is among several stations along this line that I have placed only in the “Depot Gallery” file, see the link on the Index page. Between Berwyn and Brookfield, we, scooting along on Track 2, passed an inbound Metra dinky on Track 3 being pushed by F40M 194.

This next is, I believe, Madison St. in the Congress Park section of Brookfield (west of the Brookfield station); Metra still has a Congress Park stop for a few trains. You can’t see it for the evergreen trees, but my late Aunt and Uncle Jerry and Louise Slouka (“Aunt Lou” was my mother’s sister) lived at 3831 Madison (in a house style just like the first 2 homes you see), on the east (right) side of the street, I believe the 3rd or 4th house from the end of the block. My earliest memories on visits here from our south suburban home in Homewood are what cemented my interest in the CB&Q and this “Raceway.” Dad and I would hear a freight gearing down to stop to interchange, and could watch from the back porch, but my Aunt and Uncle never heard any train noise, it was so ingrained in them after years living here. Many Q freights would stop here en route into the city to make a set-out for the Indiana Harbor Belt, on an interchange track that went between the old Congress Park depot and the south (inbound) platform (there remains a pedestrian tunnel). That track is the one at the far right in the 2nd photo. I made night photos here of early “GI” run-thru trains with Q and UP GP9s, then GP20s, stopped before or after their set-out, and I once relieved a GN FT, dead in a set-out cut and going in to EMD on trade-in, of its builder’s plate. You’ll pardon the family history. North of the main lines here remain a small BNSF yard, tracks visible in the 2nd photo, and at least one industry.

A prized icon on the Raceway is this Oak Street “rainbow bridge” overpass in eastern Hinsdale, just west of the Tri-State Tollway (I-294) underpass and the Highlands station, visible beyond the bridge on the south (right) side.

West of the curve at Belmont Avenue in Downers Grove, east of Lisle station, we – now on Track 1 – overtook BNSF 7920 West, a stack train.

Our Naperville stop was full of “action.” We arrived at 3:32, and as often happens, the PVs “didn’t make the platform.” Rick Moser, who would fly to Albuquerque the next day, is handing the Route Guide booklets he created for Clark Johnson and us passengers, to brother Phil Moser, who boarded in Chicago with us. As we pulled out, at 3:35 still on-time, we passed an inbound Metra Dinky on Track 3, pushed by F40M 189, while looking back at the headlight of the westbound Dinky we passed during its Belmont Avenue stop (see “Depot Gallery” for a photo). I was surprised at the close schedule of #3 and that Dinky at Naperville, and I bet that stack train we had just passed would immediately go to Track 1 to follow us and the Metra, because Track 2 had another train stopped west of the station (3rd photo). In the middle photo, that’s Rick Moser at the left in a green shirt, and the Debbie Crimmin, wife of our car attendant Don Crimmin, who’d brought him an item or two he’d left at home in Oswego. That westbound on Track 2 turned out to be an empty tank-car train, the CN 8924 West.

Ahead of CN 8924 West was a merchandiser, BNSF 5323 West, which we overtook just west of the CN (EJ&E) overpass at East Eola — and there was yet another tank-car train on Track 3, his head end hidden behind the 5323 West, PLUS another on a 4th track, to our right (south) whose power I didn’t see or didn’t shoot. Such action, and congestion! I’m sure glad I was trying to work only one camera!

There weren’t many units around the west end of Eola Yard or at the old roundhouse site, and I apologize for the bushes, but that blue BNSF GP38 caught my eye and I shot. It is one of theose ex-EMD 700-series leasers never repainted, and was the first of two I’d see on this trip, the other at Temple, Texas. Unit numbers: 1827/2050, plus BNSF 4039/CSX 7773).

This is simply to show you from mainline level the jct at West Eola where the passenger lines drop down to go into the yard at Aurora. A local freight goes down there too to service what’s left of the original Aurora Branch Railroad, which used to go all the way up to West Chicago, where it met the C&NW West Line (Geneva Sub main of UP today), early-on the Galena & Chicago Union. That was the first railroad junction in Illinois IIRC. There are still several BNSF freight customers on it, but it no longer goes into W. Chicago to the UP. Note the far track to the south (right) here on the main, which does not yet have a signal on the bridge. This is new track, an extension of the southernmost main track west from Eola, into downtown Aurora, where the elevation would constrict its extension further, at least for now. Cynics call this new track the Aurora Parking Lot Extension.

This is “Aurora” to BNSF now, where the Aurora Sub, at the left, diverges from the Mendota Sub, which we are on. The Aurora Sub extends thru Rochelle and Savanna, Ill., up to La Crosse, Wis.

Burlington Junction Railroad, HQ’ed in Burlington, Iowa, on a remnant of Rock Island’s trackage (which went up to Cedar Rapids and beyond), is BNSF’s contract operator of industry tracks at Montgomery, Ill., and also in Quincy, Ill., I think other places, and for the City-owned Rochelle (Ill.) Railroad. This switcher is parked west of the Mendota Sub in Montgomery.

We made our Mendota, Ill., stop at 4:24, our alleged departure time, and while in town I photographed a unit on a road train, the two-unit local engine, and then us curving around past the old tower site (which guarded the diamonds on IC’s “Charter Line” and Milwaukee Road’s branch to the coal fields around Oglesby, Ill.). The local based here is primarily for the Illinois Railway interchange at Zearing, which now sees sand trains, hence the two units. We were on Track 2, protected for passenger loading; usually the “Chief” uses Track 1. The “California Zephyr” does not stop here, but should. When the Chief was moved from the Chillicothe Sub (old Santa Fe main, aka the Transcon) to the BNSF Mendota Sub, Princeton, Ill., became the substitute for the stop at Chillicothe, Ill. (near Peoria), and Mendota became the substitute for Streator, Ill. Princeton is on I-80 and Mendota on I-39, 20 minutes apart by rail, but many in the area wish both trains would make a Mendota stop. The Quincy trains stop at both; Mendota’s depot is Union Station, for the old IC service, too, and houses a model railroad. Our stop here consumed only 2 minutes.

Not far out of Mendota we passed #4, on Track 1 as normal. We had checked on #6, the Zephyr, but apparently had met him just east of Naperville, when he, on Track 3, was blocked from our sight by the stack train. I took a long telephoto here of #4, now cropped big-time, account both of us doing track speed, such a shot being a privilege only available if you’re on a PV.

Our Princeton stop was 4:47-4:54, with departure 1 minute late, but my next photos were in Galesburg. As we went over the old Santa Fe main line (aka now the Transcon), a stack train was going underneath eastbound, and a westbound was visible in the distance.

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This photo shows the two-track divergence off to the left (north) of the Barstow Sub (aka “the Peavine”) up to Barstow and Savanna, and also you can see double-stacked containers on that Chillicothe Sub eastbound on both sides of the old BN (CB&Q) embankment. The area to the left down below, this side of the old Santa Fe, is a public park, in the afternoon a good spot for train-watching although only fair as a photo angle.

This photo shows “B-Plant,” just east of the Amtrak station, and the East Main Street grade crossing, which I was under the impression now was a new underpass. At a glance, I saw no evidence of construction of anything like that. West of downtown, Main St. now goes over above the old Santa Fe, instead of at a grade crossing. For fire protection, etc., there is an underpass just west of the Amtrak station that makes a Main St. grade separation here redundant for that factor. A city block in the distance in the photo is a dark wall on the right; this is at the now-closed Pearl St. crossing, a favorite photo spot for me in the past. Along the ex-Santa Fe thru the central city, the old Santa Fe depot is long razed, and the Transcon has only 4 grade crossings between W. Main St. and the Mendota Sub overpass, vs. 7 or 8 in the past, but there is a new overpass on North Seminary St.

The old intersection, in a grade crossing, at the depot’s east end, where E. Mulberry St. crossed S. Chambers St., has been changed so only Mulberry crosses the railroad. Chambers connects to Mulberry only on the north side, southbound to westbound (left side of photo). All this may inhibit some rail photographers but it makes downtown Galesburg safer. The Galesburg depot shot is in the “Depot Gallery” file.

We were out of the Galesburg station at 5:43 after a 5-minute stop (having arrived at our departure time), and my next photo was at the Cameron connection, where at 5:57 we entered the old Santa Fe after leaving the old CB&Q.

I was at dinner when we crossed the Mississippi, so no photos. We stopped at Fort Madison (Shopton) 6:40, and stayed 12 minutes since it’s a crew-change and smoke stop. As we left at 6:52, we saw a UP trackage-rights stack train ready to head east, two units up front and a single DPU on the rear.

At the west end of Ft. Madison yard, CP 9603 was amidst a string of BNSF units.

We crossed the Des Moines River from Iowa into Missouri at 7:09, and shortly thereafter, an eastbound stacker shot by. As we crossed the river, I noticed that the “access roads” that led to a flat spot on the Missouri side of the river, south of the tracks, where Nick Tharalson and I made some good late-afternoon action shots many years ago, now is blocked off. ETTS.

Ballast trains were parked at Medill; time is 7:18. This is one of my favorite portions of the Transcon’s east end, but I haven’t been to “NEMO” (northeast Missouri) to photograph trains in many years now. Nevertheless, as dusk fell I enjoyed the rear platform, at speed, sitting on a chair and occasionally snapping a photo. I can’t recall for sure, but I think it was Phil Moser who took my picture at request.

At Wyaconda, Track 2 was apparently lined for an eastbound right behind that stack train; time is 7:24. NEMO still has many “camelback” bridges on back roads; this one is east of Gorin, and I’ve made a few shots from it.

At Baring, the blue metal siding is on the original Santa Fe gray clapboard depot, still used by M/W forces. A grain elevator on the south side used to have artwork of a Santa Fe “warbonnet” freight diesel, IIRC.

At West Baring, where the siding ends, I was stunned to see two old Santa Fe signal supports still in use, one a “cantilever.” There can’t be many left! The state highway bridge seem in the first photo is plenty wide enough to be a photo vantage point. Another eastbound is lined up. Soon, as we neared La Plata, I caught the colors of the just-set sun on the horizon to the west, from inside Caritas’s lounge.

That eastbound, 7829 East, passed us during our stop at La Plata, which was a double-stop from 7:51 to 7:58, making us 7 minutes late in departing. The La Plata shots should’ve been my last of the day, and in a way they were, but as we sat in the station at Kansas City (where we arrived 8 minutes early at 10:03), I tried — just for grins, since it’s digital — one thru my roomette window of the lead unit, P42 54, on the next morning’s Missouri Rail Runner for St. Louis. I was asleep before our fuel stop at Argentine Yard, and awakened next morning in eastern Colorado.

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