Four-axles and boosters


 The ATSF (former) mainline from Chicago races south and then turns west to meet the southwesterly running former CBQ at Galesburg, IL.  Not far west of its crossing of the Illinois River, the 'transcon' attacks Edelstein Hill, a continuous ~1% rise of about five miles in an otherwise flat Illinois countryside.  Up on top of the plains again, an afternoon hotshot from the early 2000s races west out of Chicago showing the era's mix of power and paint.  

These were interesting days to watch the afternoon parade of containers and piggy-backs rolling west from Chicago.  Power varied from unpatched BN Cascade Green units to newer BN 'Executive Paint' MACs and these unique Santa Fe GP60s.  In this set, even a b-unit is helping to pull the tonnage west.  One of the early 'war pumpkins' is present on the point, showing the earlier green, orange and silver resplendent(?) with Santa Fe cigar band striping in Heritage II paint.  Many of these quickly faded to a bleak shade of pinkish-sand.

Today, the GP60s have found homes with other four axle units handling local jobs around the BNSF system and those GEs have soldiered on.  Some have found new life with a variety of rebuilds or even new homes for a few that have headed to CN.  But on this day 20 years ago, spring is just pushing winter off the Illinois plains again and super cabs are still a relatively new thing.  One can even find a booster or two if you're lucky.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Buried

Image
 Location:  Near Bear Mouth, MT 1603 miles west of Chicago The daylight is fading away in the photo above - in the space that has been cut by the Clark Fork River.  Here one finds the Milwaukee heading to Bearmouth, MT, making its way steadily west.  Still marking the path is the former NP (Montana Rail Link at the time this photo was taken) and not far away, empty tunnels that lie in unchanging darkness.  The searchlight signal of the old NP shows a high green along the steel rails still present, a lonely sentinel in a sad and lonely place. The signatures of Milwaukee were fading even during the time of this photo, now itself 20 years old.  The gravel road preserves what was the right-of-way but telegraphy and other markers were quickly falling even then.   Traveling along I90 is now a trip through forgotten history and gravesites.  Where bridges once crossed the old transcontinental, fill has taken their place.  No more insulator panels that guard the roads above from the electrical
Read more

The Place Where She Only Sleeps

Image
 Location: MP 1566.8 Grant-Kohrs Ranch Not far from Deer Lodge, headed west on the transcon we arrive here, at Grant-Kohrs Ranch where the Resourceful Railroad only sleeps.  Instead of empty right of way and scattered gravel, steel rail still binds the land in this place that is unlike the many other hundreds of miles along Lines West.  Across the Grant-Kohrs Ranch, on federal Park lands, the railroad only seems to rest and slumber while waiting for a new time to come.  Against the backdrop of Montana clouds that hold no rain, the catenary poles can still be found here standing against the endless skies.  The lineside poles that mark an era of railroading now gone still hold to the right of way.  It is not hard to imagine them whipping by outside the windows of an Olympian under the electrified power of a Quill or Joe.  Perhaps an XL Special could easily whisk across the scene above as though decades had never passed. Things don't seem so forgotten or beyond hope in a place like th
Read more

Summer Skies and Fading Paint

Image
On the way out of Deer Lodge, the Milwaukee Road rolled west by a fuel rack and two depots that bounded it north and south.  To the south of the rails was the freight depot, shown above and below.  Note the telegraphy pole that rises through the roof at the west end.  One can scroll back through the decades online and find it, always present, rising right through the eve of the old freight house.   Those decades weren't kind to the old house either.  The white paint has washed and faded away, the wooden shingles are increasingly missing.  When these pictures were taken in the early 2000s, the end was very near.  To the north of the former main, the passenger depot has taken on a new life as a church, but no such rebirth has come to the old freight house.  Under the hot Montana sun, the remaining paint continues to fade away and soon the house, the loading dock, and the telegraphy pole that always seemed to rise through the roof will vanish from under these blue skies. To the north
Read more