CSS 2003 East, east of 10th St. Int., Michigan City, Ind.
Chicago South Shore & South Bend GP38-2 2003 — properly equipped with a Leslie five-chime — breaks the silence of a quiet Michigan City morning as it jogs down 11th Street, en route to Shops.
Having spent December 2018 through July 2022 in the East Coast, I missed the last days of the South Shore Freight / NICTD street running in Michigan City in February 2022. At the time, I was a little displeased that I missed getting those last classic shots, like dipping down the grade at 11th St. and Lafayette and passing First Christian Church, or snaking onto 10th St. after clearing the Amtrak diamond.
Therefore, the promise of a relatively rare eastbound freight on the morning of August 6, 2022, was something of consolation prize for being six months late to the party. No more were scenes that seethed of an interurban railroad, with two steel ribbons laying in the pavement, boxed in by a series of stick homes and bungalows, and capped by overhead wire.
In retrospect, this consolation prize was worth more than the proverbial big check. Truly, how long will this brief moment in time — when the first crossties and continuous welded rail of the second track are going in, but the catenary and overhead wire still aren't in — be available? Certainly shorter than the century that photographers had to capture the classic Michigan City scenes hundreds of times over.
CSS 2003 East, east of 10th St. Int., Michigan City, Ind.
Chicago South Shore & South Bend GP38-2 2003 — properly equipped with a Leslie five-chime — breaks the silence of a quiet Michigan City morning as it jogs down 11th Street, en route to Shops.
Having spent December 2018 through July 2022 in the East Coast, I missed the last days of the South Shore Freight / NICTD street running in Michigan City in February 2022. At the time, I was a little displeased that I missed getting those last classic shots, like dipping down the grade at 11th St. and Lafayette and passing First Christian Church, or snaking onto 10th St. after clearing the Amtrak diamond.
Therefore, the promise of a relatively rare eastbound freight on the morning of August 6, 2022, was something of consolation prize for being six months late to the party. No more were scenes that seethed of an interurban railroad, with two steel ribbons laying in the pavement, boxed in by a series of stick homes and bungalows, and capped by overhead wire.
In retrospect, this consolation prize was worth more than the proverbial big check. Truly, how long will this brief moment in time — when the first crossties and continuous welded rail of the second track are going in, but the catenary and overhead wire still aren't in — be available? Certainly shorter than the century that photographers had to capture the classic Michigan City scenes hundreds of times over.