IMG_1435-Dolton-NS-GP60-bottle-train
Dolton, Illinois, 26 April 2010
In April 2010, I was in the Chicago area for the Railroad Photography and Art conference that is held most years at Lake Forest, Illinois.
Sam Carlson, who lives near Lake Forest, was kind enough to put me up at his house and also to show me around the area.
On the Monday after the conference, we went to Dolton, Illinois, south of Chciago. Here the Indiana Harbor Belt has an east-west line that crosses the former Chicago and Eastern Illinois line going north-south. The C&EI was bought by MoPac and L&N in the 1960s and with mergers, is now owned by UP and CSX.
CSX also has an east-west line at Dolton that crosses th C&EI line, the B&O Chicago Terminal. Just west of the crossing, the B&OCT turns northwest. The PRR's Panhandle route used to cross all of this at a 45 degree angle northwest to southeast. Today, the Panhandle is abandoned southeast of Dolton, but the line to the northwest sees an NS steel bottle train that comes off the IHB.
Sam and I spent much of the day at Dolton and were treated to a nearly non stop parade of trains. There was a lull in mid afternoon, but the rest of the time was pretty busy. We started out southeast of the diamonds behind the library, and the light was good there until later in the afternoon, when we switched to a park in the northwest quadrant of the diamond.
I probably saw more freight trains this Monday than any other single day,and the variety was fantastic, with two of the lines being terminal railroads that hosted other line's trains. In addition to CSX and UP homeroad trains, we saw BNSF and NS as well as a cut of IHB power running light.
The most unusual train was a steel bottle train, molten steel in cars going from a steel plant to a factory where the steel would be poured into molds. An NS usit supplied the power it was the one train that I know turned onto the old Panhandle line
Thanks, Sam, for a great day out.
IMG_1435-Dolton-NS-GP60-bottle-train
Dolton, Illinois, 26 April 2010
In April 2010, I was in the Chicago area for the Railroad Photography and Art conference that is held most years at Lake Forest, Illinois.
Sam Carlson, who lives near Lake Forest, was kind enough to put me up at his house and also to show me around the area.
On the Monday after the conference, we went to Dolton, Illinois, south of Chciago. Here the Indiana Harbor Belt has an east-west line that crosses the former Chicago and Eastern Illinois line going north-south. The C&EI was bought by MoPac and L&N in the 1960s and with mergers, is now owned by UP and CSX.
CSX also has an east-west line at Dolton that crosses th C&EI line, the B&O Chicago Terminal. Just west of the crossing, the B&OCT turns northwest. The PRR's Panhandle route used to cross all of this at a 45 degree angle northwest to southeast. Today, the Panhandle is abandoned southeast of Dolton, but the line to the northwest sees an NS steel bottle train that comes off the IHB.
Sam and I spent much of the day at Dolton and were treated to a nearly non stop parade of trains. There was a lull in mid afternoon, but the rest of the time was pretty busy. We started out southeast of the diamonds behind the library, and the light was good there until later in the afternoon, when we switched to a park in the northwest quadrant of the diamond.
I probably saw more freight trains this Monday than any other single day,and the variety was fantastic, with two of the lines being terminal railroads that hosted other line's trains. In addition to CSX and UP homeroad trains, we saw BNSF and NS as well as a cut of IHB power running light.
The most unusual train was a steel bottle train, molten steel in cars going from a steel plant to a factory where the steel would be poured into molds. An NS usit supplied the power it was the one train that I know turned onto the old Panhandle line
Thanks, Sam, for a great day out.