There seems to be plenty of CNW fans left. There have been limited products in N-Scale in CNW paint, and they seem to sell faster and for more money than others such as BNSF or UP. CNW may also be the only fallen flag with heritage units on two different RRs: Metra and UP, and living alone the historic CNW line, I've seen them both.
That C&NW Metra unit is really neat @CardboardNoWheels . I'd never seen it before. Still very much the C&NW fan, though I no longer live in the area.
That plow wasn't Zito yellow originally, was it? That's what the locomotives looked like after a few years on the road that were painted in that color. ghostly white. The CNW is my second RR after The Milwaukee Road. The Milwaukee was here in Austin with a fairly extensive yard and shops for such a small town and then, when I moved to Rochester in 1981, the CNW was there (I'm back in Austin again). The biggest share of the locomotives on my layout are CNW. Doug
Did a little research and that's a Union Pacific depot, built 1926. There was a sugar plant nearby. A short distance away was the CB&Q at Torrington, WY and that station still stands too. The C&NW's line (to their westernmost extremity at Lander) was roughly 60 miles north of Torrington. I've always been fascinated by this line. This map is from my 1945 Official Guide. It's all yellowed, so I "whitened" the map here. Somewhere I read that the C&NW studied a western extension to the Pacific coast, but unlike the Milwaukee, never proceeded with it. Supposedly it would have crossed through southern MT and terminated in OR. I'm not sure about the validity of what I read.
I know I have read about that too, Dan. It may have been in an old CNW historical society magazine. Anyway, I don't know how I forgot to mention the CGW in my other post. That was the other railroad through Austin and for whom my mother's father worked until he died from tuberculosis in 1940 as a result of mustard gas exposure in WWI. So, I never knew him, unfortunately. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have begged him to take me with him on track repair jobs (he was a section gang foreman). My father's grandfather worked for the Milwaukee as an agent and worked in many different towns/cities, including Minneapolis, over his career. He died before I was born, too. Here is a picture of the CGW depot, built in 1958 in the Demarus era and demolished in 1983 (only 25 years old!), in Austin. Of course, the CNW and CGW merged in 1968 and much of the CGW track was redundant and abandoned: Doug
True. If I recall correctly, the subsidiary which constructed this segment was the Wyoming & Northwestern. Many railroads looked westward. Missouri Pacific reached Colorado, as did the Rock Island. The St. Louis & San Francisco as well. Even the Minneapolis & St. Louis also toyed with such an idea, and actually reached the Missouri River at LeBeau, South Dakota.
I believe this was once Zito yellow. MOW equipment along the Lake Shore in Chicago to service the electric commuter lines. Metra now operates it.
I had no idea that C&NW had ever operated any electrified portions of those commuter lines. Or is this something which passed to another owner via outright equipment sale?
Oh, man -- that is such a COOL picture Doug. I have a liking for modern architecture from that era and that really hits the spot. Too, I like to think of the optimism that prevailed when such a station was built. Thanks much for posting it.
From the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, two period photos of C&NW in WY. I've never been to the region, but it looks sparse. Careyhurst, WY: Lusk, WY:
I'm re-reading John Droege's Passenger Terminals & Trains (c. 1916, republished 1969 by Kalmbach) and in it I found something interesting, at least to me. The C&NW's passenger terminal in Chicago was brilliantly designed for efficiency and one detail I never knew about was that baggage elevators were placed just behind select bumpers, making it an easier task to swiftly move the vast volume of passenger luggage on and off trains. These were likely covered and removed from service when I took this shot in about 1975. Mail was handled via a conveyor system beneath certain tracks. The other thing I never knew was that each of the terminal's 16 tracks were equipped with Conductor-activated signaling that allowed two trains to be handled on each track. I'm assuming that these were tied to Lake Street interlocking, a tower located at the terminal throat.
Thank you. I sure wish I'd taken some pictures inside the station; its waiting area was impressive in dimension and detail. But, I was just a high school kid and wanted to be where the trains were. An enlargement of the above photo shows a repeating pattern of steam locomotive drive wheels, tools and bells worked into the arches. Looking up into the barrel-vaulted ceiling, I first noticed these when I was a kid. It breaks my heart that this lovely terminal is gone.
