Thursday, May 17, 2007

Chicago sightings, part 2


In my last post, I described my first two days in Chicago. Here I will describe my last two days.

After all the excitement from May 8, I had a quiet day on the 9th. Again I got up early to go to the Prairie View Metra Station to shoot a few trains. I went a little later and caught three Metra trains, again all with cab cars leading.

07:02 Southbound Metra: METX 115, METX 419 (6 cars)
07:11 Southbound Metra: METX 122 (5 cars)
07:21 Southbound Metra: METX 118 (4 cars)

In the evening of the 9th, the group of us from our conference went for a boat ride on Lake Michigan.


My flight left O'Hare at 15:45 on the 10th. I left a lot of time for the drive to the airport, as I had no idea what the traffic would be like. As it turned out, I made very good time and I had some extra time before I had to get to the airport. I decided to go to CP's Bensenville Yard, seen from the highway last time, and see what I could see. A lot, as it turns out. (Google Maps)

When I arrived, I saw a few SOO switchers, CP 4526 under the Mannheim Road overpass, and UP 3236 and 2864 running out of the yard. The two Union Pacific units came to the end of the yard, the conductor lined up some switches, and they went back into the yard.


12:01 UP 3236, UP 2864



After a little ground-level photography, I decided to go up on the Mannheim Road overpass to shoot from there. The view east is great but the view west is obscured by wires in a number of places.

12:25 Westbound arriving at yard: NS 9347, NS 8835
-- In yard: SOO 2064, SOO 1595, SOO 1544, SOO 1532, SOO 1547

Things became very busy for a while...

12:44 CP westbound passed through yard.
12:46 Eastbound reading to leave with coal loads.: CP 8539, CP 9639. They pulled under the bridge but stopped short of the end of the yard.
12:47 Departing eastbound with mixed cargo: SOO 1553

-- Shunting yard: SOO 1546
-- Shunting tanks: CP 4526

It was difficult to figure out where to point my camera next!

13:02 Westbound arriving with doublestacks: SOO 4443, SOO 4446
13:03 Westbound Metra 1xx (6 cars)
13:07 Eastbound Metra 4xx (7 cars)

The real catch was a string of Norfolk Southern and CSX units coming out of the yard. They came down the yard ladder and under the overpass, before going back into the yard.

NS 9882, NS 9246, CSXT 7524, CSXT 5472, CSXT 8811, CSXT 8245, NS 9780
After that, I figured I should get to the airport. But I did catch one more train before getting home.

In Montreal, I stepped out of the Trudeau Airport for a minute to breathe some real air, and I saw an eastbound CP trailer train go by the Dorval station. Sorry, I didn't catch any numbers. :)

For other trip reports, see:

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