Recent Digital Photos
by Mike Condren

This series of page covers a trip to Wisconsin. This page began as a single page but the second day of the trip was so successful that I have divided the single page into 3 parts. Part 1 is below and covers the journey north to Rochelle and a couple hours on Saturday. Part 2 covers the next day, Sunday Feb. 28. Part 3 covers the return trip to Memphis with some time in St. Louis.

2/28/10
Rochelle, IL

This geep is the Rochelle switcher for BNSF.

While shooting the BNSF switcher, I heard an eastbound UP and gave chase. This will be the first of several near misses.

The first train on this long day at the Railfan Park was this eastbound intermodal train on the BNSF.

A few views of Gobal III intermodal yard.

While driving back toward Rochelle on IL 38/Lincoln Highway, I noticed a BNSF westbound on my left.

A pair of UP engines were parked near the main.

Upon returning to Railfan Park, the #2 main displayed a "clear" for a westbound empty coal train.

Railfan Park now has a retired crossing gate and flashers at its entrance.

On my way to pick up Jan and head to church, I had seen that the west bound signal for NX crossing was "clear" and just after crossing the track I ran into this train and had to shoot it through the windshield.

After picking Jan up at the motel, on our way to church, I notice the Produce Railexpress train from the west coast across a field. This train was described in detail in Feb. 2010 Trains, page 24-31. The big find, only to see it across a field. Sorry, that it is not a better shot.

The service at the First Presbyterian Church in Rochelle was very good. After an hour I returned trackside.

After dropping Jan back at the motel, I noticed an eastbound stack train of all K-Line containers so I headed east on IL38 to Mulford Road and the city trash dump.

On the way back into town and Railfan Park, I noticed an eastbound grain train with a DPU across a field.

I went by the Rochelle Railroad engine terminal. They are the local switching operation for the industrial park on the east side of Rochelle. They contract out their switching, in this case, the Burlington Junction. The #3238 is a Whitcomb which is back home where it was built.

Back at the Railfan Park, the first train was an empty unit coal train.

In spite of it being a cold day, there were 2 vehicles from MI, 1 from WI and of course 1 from TN in addition to all of the IL vehicles. The parking lot was quite full.

The next westbound train was an intermodal. Note that there are 4 units on the point and 2 units operating in DPU mode.

The next train was an empty unit coal train. It met an eastbound general freight near the signal bridge.

Then a bare table train came rolling by.

The trains are now getting close together, 13 trains in 1.5 hours.

Here is an eastbound vehicle train meeting a westbound general freight.

The vehicle train met this general freight.

As soon as the UP cleared, this BNSF intermodal train appeared.

The next train was a vehicle train coming out of Global III on track #1.

Five minutes later this intermodal train came through on track #2 with 2 units on the point and 2 as operating as DPU. It was followed 14 minutes later by another intermodal train on track #2. The second train did not have a DPU.