SP 4449 coming to Chicagoland

I caught it in Brookfield last nite on its way to the IHB, waiting there for about two hours with a few other railfans, one of whom happened to be a BNSF employee, and later found out that another one posts here as Metra47607. During the wait, all of us were relating our various railfan experiences, and the BNSF employee had some pretty interesting insights as well, it was a friendly, enlightening discussion. We saw five trains before 4449 got there, a westbound manifest out of Clearing, an eastbound Powder River, Metra runs 1321 & 1322, plus Amtrak's Carl Sandburg (#382). By the time it came through at 10:25pm, a small crowd had gathered comprised of both railfans and other curious folks trying to figure out what the fuss was all about. There were bars on both sides of the Prairie Ave. crossing, and folks started coming out when the engine arrived, many of whom were quite impressed. It stopped briefly to let off someone (who, as it turned out, was actually getting a ride home from one of the other railfans!), then went on its way. Took a few pictures, but I forgot that I'm not very good with night shots, so they didn't turn out so good. But otherwise, it was a good time.

byte wrote:I caught it in Blue Island last night. As per the exif data on my photos, it went through at 11:48 pm.

That's pretty good time, since it didn't hit the IHB 'til 10:30...

doepack wrote:That's pretty good time, since it didn't hit the IHB 'til 10:30...

Dang, had I known this was all happening that late I probably could have caught it at Chi Ridge. Oh well, try again in two weeks.

I caught the special on the way in too, at Highlands. It stopped at the next stop in Western Springs to let someone off. Maybe twenty minutes before it arrived, the engineer of the outbound Illinois Zephyr [#383] was (rightfully) complaining to the dispatcher about some foamer who had setup their tripod between the rails of main #3. My guess is that this is one of the reasons the class 1s are apprehensive about these steam specials on their rails...

We showed up at Blue Island around 9:30, hoping the see the first steam movement through BI junction in over a decade ... and to our shock no one else was there. After a while a dark SUV pulled into the tower's parking lot, and we noticed that he'd been briefly flipping concealed police flashers on everytime a train went through. A while later he pulled into where we were parked (east side of the tracks, north of Broadway in a gravel lot) and the first thing he said was "So you guys are waitin' around for this thing too?" Contrary to popular belief, cool railroad cops exist and we encountered one of them (he was with the IHB. Said they had guys stationed around at various locations along the route to ensure the 4449's safe trip). We got talking in the lull time, and he was saying how annoying it is everytime someone gets hit by a train, and that you get paid way more working as a railroad cop than as a state trooper. After a while other cars began showing up and I think there were six or seven there by the time it passed through, with maybe 25-30 people with cameras and tripods. A few people must have collectively brought close to $20,000 in flash equipment on hand. One kid kept getting way too close to the tracks and the cop had to warn him (repeatedly!) to keep away from them, in entertaining fashion. Eventually a whistle was heard and shortly thereafter a mars light began peeking out from the bridges over the canal, and the locomotive (and its auxillary water car) trundled by at about 35 mph. A hi-rail truck was running right behind it, passing by maybe two minutes later. I don't know if it was a dispatcher's doing or just fate, but thankfully nothing was sent down the the B&OCT while the locomotive was going through the junction.

I got a few decent pictures of the locomotive throughout the day, and will post 'em when I get them on flickr.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khfHI-6EGVA at Niles, MI


I really wanted to catch it at Michigan City but the time was too unpredictable. Many from Niles showed up expecting a 10:00-10:30am (Eastern Time) passage. It went through at 2:21-2:26pm or so. Yes, five minutes to pass the platform - a very good show put on by the SP4449.

Yep a few of us chased her. We met up at 18th st. (Nick Suydam, Nate Beal, and Ian Contreras) +me Frank Campbell. We shot it west of Clyde Yard, Blue Island ( i Wish the cop wasn't there). State Line, and East Chicago

mrconductor55 wrote:Blue Island ( i Wish the cop wasn't there)

Don't take this the wrong way [i.e., as an insult] but that railroad cop had every right to and should have been there. It's his job to protect the railroad's assets and operations from anyone who might cause harm, including those who get too close to take a picture. In all the excitement of the 4449 coming through a B&OCT freight could have barrelled through and hurt or killed anyone who was standing too close to the tracks, which would have likely resulted in four things happening:

1). No more excursion traffic on the IHB, and possibly no easy way for the 4449 to get back to Chicago
2). Police being called by the CN tower operator at Blue Island on a zero-tolerance basis to deal with railfans who dare step one foot onto railroad property
3). Every class 1 taking a good, hard look at steam excursions and the risk they pose to the railroad, and examining if they're even worth allowing to run
4). 4449's insurance rates skyrocketing, a great way to kill a steam excursion program (see: Frisco 1522)

We railfans sometimes like to think that we're "in the know" and it's okay for us to get closer than the mom and dad who brought their kids to see the excursion, but it is not okay. You can get that close if you're wearing a yellow safety vest, steel-toed boots and your paycheck has a railroad's name on it. Otherwise, back off.

byte wrote:I caught the special on the way in too, at Highlands. It stopped at the next stop in Western Springs to let someone off. Maybe twenty minutes before it arrived, the engineer of the outbound Illinois Zephyr [#383] was (rightfully) complaining to the dispatcher about some foamer who had setup their tripod between the rails of main #3

I really wish that was a joke, but it came up while waiting for it last night in Brookfield with the others. We were joking amongst ourselves about how Doyle McCormack, if he saw that, would make sure this would be the last time he'd come to Chicago with 4449...

byte wrote:We railfans sometimes like to think that we're "in the know" and it's okay for us to get closer than the mom and dad who brought their kids to see the excursion, but it is not okay. You can get that close if you're wearing a yellow safety vest, steel-toed boots and your paycheck has a railroad's name on it. Otherwise, back off.

Can I get an AMEN on that? Couldn't have said it better myself, well done, byte...

Yeah frankly there were just too many people there(which was fine and dandy, except fo the fact that it was super hard to find a decent spot to shoot) The cop was borderline nice, Everyone wanted to set up near the GTW tower, but couldn't with the cop being there. People (including me) shoot there all the time w/o incident. I wasn't that close to the B&OCT tracks, just lined up with the crossing gate on the opposite side of the street. Like many said, he was borderline nice, we ran into him again at E. Chicago. B.I. was the only place where my shots were bust.

The restrictions in Niles were odd. There is a wide space along a fence (30-40ft) that the police were chasing people out of but people were closer on the station platform (about 20ft from the SP 4449) but no effort was made to push back fans who were within 10-15ft of the rail in Amtrak's yard. One or two were within 5ft of the SP 4449. I'd consider the Amtrak yard area a "trespassing area" if it were not for the number of people present in that area. If I were there for a normal Amtrak arrival I'd expect to get chased out. So it was a mixture of allowing the abnormal as well as not allowing safer viewing points then were being allowed. (But I suppose if they allowed people in the "along the fence" area it would have become filled with people. Note that this was a yard full of pallets and rail supplies, not a set of tracks that trains park on.) There were at least three officers watching the platform crowd but none in the Amtrak yard.

I suppose that was the dividing line between the town people who read about it in a local paper and railfans who came from further away.

One woman put some pennies on the rail before the train passed through. I'm not sure she found them later. Other than that I didn't see anything dangerous. I believe the people within 5ft of the train were a professional film crew.

Chicago Update:

August 1: Franklin Park (northwest of Chicago)
SP 4449 will be going to Franklin Park, IL on August 1st to be on display at the METRA station from 10 am to 3:30 PM.

The City of Franklin Park, Canadian Pacific Railway, and METRA worked together to bring SP 4449 to this railroad town allowing residents of northeast Illinois an opportunity to view the locomotive that couldn't fit inside Chicago Union Station. The SP 4449 crew are very appreciative of the generosity and work the City of Franklin Park, Canadian Pacific Railway, and METRA have done to make this happen.

Hop on a METRA from Chicago Union Station and come see the steam locomotive, which will be on display at the Franklin Park METRA station located on the Milwaukee District West line.

- Milwaukee District West schedules
- Franklin Park METRA station info

On a fun note, take a look at the aerial photo of Franklin Park METRA station on Google Maps, the satellite happened to capture a photo of Canadian Pacific Railway's steam locomotive #2816 from British Columbia running through town on September 1, 2007. What a coincidence!

Cool. Before that update was posted there was actually text on the SP4449 website denying any Franklin Park stop. It is good to see something worked out. I'm hoping to catch the train in the Michigan City area myself.

Just caught the 4449 less than an hour ago. I suspected that it might have to make another stop in Chicago Ridge to hold for a Metra train, so that's where I was, and sure enough, SWS #838 took priority. The 4449 was held just south of the diamond for about five minutes, where myself and only two other railfans (and an IHB police officer) could be found. I guess there were probably more people chasing it, but they weren't at that spot (a Metra lot next to the IHB tracks). I heard from a buddy of mine a little while later that the BNSF/IHB crossing was pretty laden with people waiting for it.

4449 went all the way to Franklin Park tonight, surprisingly there were little railfans present. I was able to catch it a few times, once west of Chi Ridge, in LaGrange, and in Franklin Park.

i was at fp that night, i was the guy set up with the tripod on top of the waterslide at the pool north of the ROW

Maybe twenty minutes before it arrived, the engineer of the outbound Illinois Zephyr [#383] was (rightfully) complaining to the dispatcher about some foamer who had setup their tripod between the rails of main #3

I was there in Western Springs when that thing came to a stop. It actually PICKED UP the mother of the fireman who lives in the suburb. There was a nice writeup about this in the local paper.

I walked down to the Wolf Road crossing. While it was stopped, there were cameras all over the place. And, since the gates were down, no automobile traffic was crossing, so the cameras started wandering onto the track. And yes, there was an outbound that passed while the train was there; some people with brains had to physically drag some camera idiots off the tracks.

There were a couple of tripods set on the tracks, but all but one took their pictures and got out of the way. The one remaining idiot had a camera lens that looked like it could be used for surveilance on the Willis (nee Sears) Tower from WS. The locomotive gave two LONG blasts on the whistle. Everybody else moved out of the way. The IDIOT stayed with his tripod in the middle of track 3. Finally, one of the crew politely told him "Hey a*****e, get the **** off the tracks!" He slowly folded his tripod up and moved.

It really makes me proud to be interested in trains. He is my hero--NOT