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.
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.
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. :)
06:24 Southbound Metra train 102: METX 105 (5 cars)
06:40 Southbound Metra train 104: METX 115, METX 418 (5 cars)
In both cases the cab car was leading and the locomotive(s) trailed.
I had a free evening Tuesday night, so I decided to take Bill Linley's advice and go to Lagrange to shoot at the intersection of the CSX/Indiana Harbour Belt line and the BNSF line. As I was crawling along the interstate, I noticed a yard to my right. It turns out this was the CP Bensenville Yard.
2007/05/08 17:45, Location: Chicago (Bensenville Yard)
-- Seen from highway: CSXT 8149, NS 9915, NS 2687, CSXT 8764, SOO 1537, SOO 1544, SOO 1547, UP 3236, UP 2864, UP 2370, CEFX 118
I arrived in Lagrange (map) just as an Amtrak train rolled by on the BNSF line, with two private cars on the tail end. No time for a picture - drat.
I parked at the local library and decided to watch the IHB line for a while. There were two CSX units in the little yard just west of the BNSF line. My first sighting was a Metra train on the BNSF line: 18:11 Metra: METX 187
Within a few minutes, a Canadian Pacific freight came crawling along. 18:13 Northbound general freight: CP 8620 (70 cars)
As I taped that, an Amtrak train crossed over it at 18:14.
The next train on the IHB line was a Norfolk Southern train. I'll have a video of that online shortly. 18:23 Northbound general freight: NS 7506, NS 9763
Just after that passed, the two CSX units ran light northward. Just after they went, a Metra train crossed overhead. 18:38 Northbound running light: CSXT 9023, CSXT 9032; Metra: METX 196
The rest of the action here was on the BNSF line. I stayed down on the IHB line for a while, then decided to go up to the Lagrange station to see the rest of the traffic. 18:44 METX 191 18:52 BNSF train: BNSF 5715, BNSF 5785
19:04 Metra 4xx: (7 cars) 19:11 METX 193
The nice thing about railfanning at the Lagrange station is that you can see signals in both directions. Although I'm not familiar with American signals, it's pretty obvious that when the signal is green, a train is coming. There are three tracks there, so the signals tell you what track to watch too. I waited quite a while for the next one, noticing a group of three guys looking down the line too. I assume they were railfans but they had no cameras nor did they seem to take any notes. 19:28 METX 200 19:45 General freight: BNSF 5093, BNSF 7072, BNSF 8060 19:50 Bare table train: BNSF 575
The light was really failing by this time, so I decided to head out. As I was walking to my car, I shot one more Metra train. The light was so bad that I shot at ISO 400 and ended up with shutter speed 1/20s and aperture F3.2. 20:06 METX 1x6
I am in Chicago for a few days, and last night I went to Lagrange, IL to see some trains. I saw quite a few and I hope to put a report together in the next day or two. In the meantime, I have put a few videos on YouTube. The quality is not great, as these were taken with my Canon S3 still camera and not with the Sony video camera. I accidentally left the video camera on and my battery was pretty much DOA when I got to Lagrange. I did take a few videos with that but I don't have the software to get the videos off the camera here. In the meantime, have a look at these.
Amtrak:
BNSF coal train:
I see a few people have rated these videos on YouTube, and that's great. I appreciate people taking the time to give me their feedback. On these two I have not received very good ratings, and that is fair - they are not great videos. I'm glad to get feedback on anything I put on the Net.
