Slipping out of Union Station, one of the last runs for the night on the Metra Southwest Service is bound for Manhattan (the one in Illinois). Heading under a multitude of overhead signals guiding its path out of town, the train picks up speed and the conductor begins to collect tickets, his unmistakable figure (complete with hat) silhouetted in the rear window of the train car. Read the rest of this entry »
One night, while waiting for something to happen in suburban Chicago, I ventured up to the Mannheim Road bridge over the east end of Canadian Pacific’s giant Bensenville freight yard. As it turns out, there were two trains working this end of the yard, the first of which was an IC&E freight train just beginning to put their train away in the receiving yard. In order to do so, the conductor had to wander up towards the switches, lantern in hand, to get them lined up, walking through the cool evening air. It’s just another night on the railroad. Read the rest of this entry »
I put this up on Flickr yesterday, but I thought it might deserve to be a bit bigger over here on the blog. The look on this conductor’s face just about sums up this extreme cold spell we’re in the middle of. This is from last Saturday, on the platform at LaFox, IL, as a Metra conductor steps off his frosty train, caked in ice and snow from the westbound trip, to make sure no more passengers need to get on or off, and then waves a quick ‘highball’ to the engineer up front.
As always, give it a click, this one needs to be big.
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