I believe this picture is 14 years old. CN train is sitting facing northwest just in Forest Park Il. This is the Altenheim Sub on CSX. The minute it crosses Madison it will enter River Forest and leave the Altenheim for home rails. Formerly WC formerly SOO. The altenheim was originally built to give SOO and Chicago Great Western access into Union Station. Later it became SOO/WC's route into BRC's clearing yard. Several bridges east of BRC are out. It was regularly used as such through the 90s and into the 2000s until CN purchased the EJ&E. At that point most traffic died. CSX runs a local from BRC out to Forest Park and the Ferrara Pan Candy factory in Forest Park (Lemonheads). CN will run a train on the line every so often just to maintain it as an active line, but EJ&E is the better route. There's always talk of upgrading this for some sort of passenger service, but it would take a lot of work to upgrade things and the route in River Forest runs through a quiet (rich) residential neighborhood. It's been a lot of years since a train regularly ran. I grew up here and this was one of the first lines I railfaned.
Friday, 11/20/2020. NS 19G heads West through Wyomissing JCT led by a pair of SD60E's,after finishing its work at Reading's Spring Street Yard. DSC05871 by Sepp K posted Nov 20, 2020 at 11:05 PM The first car carried this heavy whatever-it-is. DSC05880 by Sepp K posted Nov 20, 2020 at 11:05 PM DSC05883 by Sepp K posted Nov 20, 2020 at 11:05 PM
July 1978 at Ringoes, NJ finds Black River & Western's No. 60 at rest. She's a former Great Western Rwy. (of Colorado) sugar hauler and was built by Alco in 1937.
It was a different time. Back then, there was no turntable at Owosso, so PM 1225 would run tender first to Clare and run forward on the return trip to Owosso. Chases back in the 90s would start with a trip to Clare, followed by the excellent Italian buffet at Bucilli's and a leisurely drive down to the depot to watch the train come in. When the train left town again with the locomotive running forward, the chase began in earnest. This photo is the first I have posted from scans of my print photo collection, and while there are many different subjcts in this collection, I felt it was appropriate to start where the digital collection left off- with the 1225. It shows the Clare depot in its former location and deteriorated condition. Since then, the depot has been moved a distance east and refurbished. (not restored precisely. Its appearance is somewhat different today. It now serves as an office building.) In the photo, 1225 has been serviced and is ready to return to Owosso. It's somewhat ironic that, while 1225 is holding down the old Ann Abor main, the crowd in the photo is occupying the former Pere Marquette Ludington line. While I'm not particularly pleased with the scan, I felt the photo was worth posting.
An unplanned Northgate Local chase on an overcast, foggy, frosty day yielded some nice shots. Near Aurelia, ND at the tail end of blue hour:
