Fall 2013 Trip - 1

Hi, Friends Bill Kalkman, Steve Salamon, and Stan Short joined me for a 10 day fall trip to Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota. We arrived in Chicago to cloudy weather on October 4th. Bill's nephew Don showed us around the area near Ohare Airport on the 4th before Steve's arrival later in the day.

Our first stop was the Chicago Terminal's facility in Elk Grove.  This Iowa Pacific E9 was stored there.

Also on hand were a few Chicago Terminal locomotives.

A UP GP15-1 was switching.

From Elk Grove we headed over to Franklin Park.  On the way we spotted this brand new GP20C parked along the road.

Franklin Park has this really neat signal bridge erected by the Milwaukee.  Here a westbound commuter train passes under it.

CP's former Milwaukee Bensenville yard is a mile or so to the west.  In between the Metra action a CP manifest headed east under the signal bridge.

Later we checked out Indiana Harbor Belt's Nor Paul Yard.

Our final shot of the day was a UP train heading down the Indiana Harbor Belt.

We then went to pick up Steve and the five of us went out to dinner.  After dinner we drove up to Whitewater, WI to be in position to photograph the Wisconsin Southern.

On checking with office in Janesville we learned the train from Horicon was close.  Our first shot was crossing the Rock River in Janesville.

We got a few more photos when the train stopped to set some hand brakes and cut off the power.

Then we headed up to Milton, WI as we were told a crew would go on duty in Janesville at 10:00 AM and proceed to Janesville where they would take a train to Madison, WI.  We found the train sitting with its crew at a grade crossing west of town.

However, we were not aware that the crew had switching to do in town.  They spent all afternoon doing this while we waited a few miles west.  Finally, in late afternoon we got a few photos of the crew switching in Milton.

Our final shot was of the train passing what we took for the former Milwaukee depot.  If it was the old depot it had been converted for use as a community center.

After getting our photos in Milton we drove to Debuque, IA for the night.  The weather would improve.