20170305 CGW Depot, Elmhurst, Twin CN&W locomotives

While working on a blog posting for Elmhurt's CGW's depot, I wondered if the building I saw on the satellite image was that depot. So I grabbed my camera and headed up York Street to determine if the depot has been preserved. It has.

The building in the satellite image where the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin depot used to be is now a park pavilion. Note the Illinois Prairie Path on the left that was built on the Row of the CA&E.

I turned 180-degrees and took a shot across York to show the park that Elmhurst has made from the abandoned RoWs of the CGW and CA&E, which used to run parallel to each other through here. That is the CGW depot you see peaking through the trees near the left and the Illinois Prairie Path on the right.

A view of the depot from the trail.

In this case the power companies evidently bought the edge of the RoWs because they existed while the tracks were still active. See the historical photo in the main blog.

I then went up York to see what downtown Elmhurst looked like. I knew that was where the UP/C&NW went through town. Traffic was stopped by a train. Before I could get parked, the engine had already gone by. It had just one locomotive.

It was a short train. This is just a few seconds later. Maybe it was short because it was a Sunday.

I took some pictures of the town's museum because it was a neat looking building. (Satellite) This is as far back as I could get without falling down an embankment to Robert Palmer Drive. Southeast corner.

Northeast corner.

I went down to Robert Palmer Drive to walk under the tracks to get on the north platform. This is a view of the north side of the museum from Metra's north platform.

I've lived in Downers Grove for over 40 years, but I have never been to downtown Elmhurst before. So this is an overview from near the east side of the Metra platform.

I had noticed headlights to the east when I arrived on the platform. The train finally started heading westbound.

It took a long time to arrive because it was going really slow.

It was going about twice as fast as I could comfortably walk.

Even though it was slow, I'm still having trouble with blurring. I need to pay better attention to my shutter speed. But I can still read the Placard number --- 1987.
1987 127 Alcohols, n.o.s.
1987 127 Denatured alcohol

A plaque on their Metra depot.

Slow trains leave you with a lot of time to kill. This seems to be the best shot of the depot that I got. It wasn't particularly photogenic.

It occurred to me that I could capture more of what downtown looked like and get the train.

It did start picking up speed near the end. In hindsight, it was leaving Proviso Yard, and it could not go up to track speed until its end had cleared the yard limit.

I took a sequence because I wanted to see how much of the downtown I could capture and still record that the train was passing.

Note the sky was clearing up to the west. Unfortunately, that clear sky never made its way east to Elmhurst.

(Facebooked) I learned from some railfans that the only two locomotives still in C&NW paint were expected eastbound. So I killed some time by walking past the shops on the south side of the tracks. There was an ice cream shop open in March. Before I finished eating my ice cream, the units arrived.

I shot early and often.

The above picture cropped

#8701  C44-9W

#8646  C44-9W

The above picture cropped

#7417  ES44AC, built 2009

It was another short train. The railfans explained that it came from Rochelle and left a cut of autoracks in West Chicago. It must have been a big cut to justify three locomotives. Because 19 containers don't need that kind of power.

I was taking pictures as I was walking back across Cottage Hill Avenue and towards the platform.

I started this trip with just one bar on my camera's battery. The plan was to checkout the CGW depot then go downtown/railfanning to run the battery down so that I could recharge it. Fortunately, I did have enough charge to get plenty of shots of "The Twins," as the railfans referred to the two C&NW livery locomotives.

I had been seeing some Facebook posting about two C&NW locomotives that the IRM was storing were taken back by UP. These are those units.

The Diesel Shop

Jimmy Bakes posted a Trains Mag link indicating The Twins are going to be repainted as generic UP locomotives. I can't read the link because I don't subscribe to Trains, but I can read the comments. Of note:

HAROLD KREWER

These two units dodged the paint booth for 22 years, thanks to the efforts of several ex-C&NW managers at UP that were their benefactors.

To be quite honest, their original paint is starting to get a bit ratty. The good folks at IRM tried to touch up a couple of the very worst spots while they were in storage as a goodwill gesture, but that only goes so far.

Whether or not these two ever do wind up in preservation remains to be seen, but if they do, they'll need a fresh coat of C&NW green and yellow either way, so what's the difference?

Better they get a fresh coat of yellow-and-gray that will protect the carbody from further rust and decay that let them turn to rustbuckets still wearing what's left of a 30+year-old paint job.

Don't be sad it's over, be glad it happened in the first place!