Just train pictures and train stories

Amtrak California Dash 8:

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Rogers Park Metra:

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This station is located just two blocks north of where I live. Ten minute walk, 20 to downtown and 16 for back here.
 
Finally, the Clybourn station. This station serves two lines at the same time-- the Union Pacific North and the Union Pacific Northwest. The train on the left is the UP North. The one entering the station is the UP Northwest. Some interesting info about this station-- this here has 5 tracks-- two for the UPN, and three for the UPNW.

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A little more info about these lines. The UP North has mainly Safetran bells, but the UP Northwest mainly has WCH e-bells Type 2. A photo of one of those is up next.
 
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These two Metra locomotive are beasts. Nos. 611 and 614, the last two remaining F40C locomotives. They used to have 609, but no more. :(

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I have ridden the following CTA Train Lines:

Yellow
Purple
Red
Green
Pink
Blue
Orange
Brown

That's 7 CTA lines. That's how many they have.

As for the Metra, I have ridden the following:

Milwaukee North Line

Southwest Service

Metra Electric

UP North

UP Northwest

That's five. One day I see myself riding the BNSF Line, but dunno how that would work. And the Rock Island District Line.

As for the Amtrak, I have ridden the following:

Train #390 Saluki

Train #391 Saluki

Train #392 Illini

Train #393 Illini

Train #59 City of New Orleans

The only one I haven't ridden is the #58 City of New Orleans.


Mark

Sent from my Asus Memo Pad using AllDeaf Mobile App
 
Here's an unusual Metra locomotive. The engineers call these "Winnebagos" commonly found on the BNSF Subdivision.

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The WCH Type 2 e-bell is on the right. This kind is usually found on larger crossbucks. There's a smaller version of it, as well.

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My story about the trains a little history for you.

Do hope you all enjoy reading all about the trains in parts for I have a lot to write about.

Trains and more trains and those who worked on them ask any trainman about the story of trains.

For most of human history, neither people nor goods could move any faster or in any greater bulk than the feet of humans or beasts could carry them. This did not change until the early 19th century when simple boiling water was harnessed for use in the steam engine. The happy congruence of steam power and tracks created the railway and the greatest revolution in transportation in the history of the world.
The first railway opened between Liverpool and Manchester, England, in September 1830. Despite the death of an MP, who was run down by the locomotive at the opening ceremony, the L&M Railroad ignited a fever of track laying around the world.
The potential of the railway for Canada, with its vast and difficult geography, was quickly realized by a group of Montreal businessmen. The first indication came in the 1820s when the mail from Britain was entrusted to trans-Atlantic steamships, cutting the time by two-thirds. Then in 1830, a snorting, belching steam engine was installed by sappers to drive a capstan to raise great blocks of granite up the precipitous slopes of the Quebec Citadel. A year later, a railway opened between Albany and Schenectady, New York. Among its passengers was Peter McGill, president of the Bank of Montreal, and Jason B. Pierce, a New Englander who had been captured in the War of 1812 and had remained in Saint-Jean, a prosperous village on the Richelieu River. They, along with the brewer John Molson, were the authors of the bill that created Canada's first railway company on February 25, 1832.

For Pierce in particular a railway to connect the St Lawrence and Lake Champlain was a natural, cutting valuable time off the tiresome journey between Montreal and New York.
Construction got underway in January 1835. Two young American engineers surveyed a route from Saint-Jean to the nearest point on the St. Lawrence, which happened to be the hamlet of LA prairie, 12 kilometers (as the crow flies) upstream from Montreal. The project finally was given its proper name, the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad. By the end of the year the grading, fencing, masonry, and bridge work a wharf at LA prairie and parts of two station houses were completed. The company ordered a steam locomotive from Newcastle and four passenger cars from the United States. Flatcars and baggage wagons were built in a Montreal factory.
To be continued: The story of trains.
 
The story of trains continued



The tracks consisted of 6-inch pine squares joined by iron splice plates and bolts. Iron straps were spiked to the upper surface of the rails for protection. Though potentially dangerous, the rails caused only one minor accident before they were replaced by iron rails in the 1850s.
In June 1836, the locomotive Dorchester arrived at Molson’s wharf in Montreal. It had four driving wheels, a high centre of gravity, and a short wheelbase that earned it the nickname “Kitten" for its skittish behavior. An indentured driver was sent along with the engine, but since his contract was unenforceable in Canada, he deserted soon after arrival. The Dorchester’s trial runs were staged at night in the moonlight so as not to frighten the public.
The line opened in July 1836 to a huge celebration. Lord Gosford, Governor General of Lower Canada, and Louis-Joseph Papineau, the future rebel, were among the first passengers. The 300 guests proved too much for the little engine so only the two first-class coaches, carrying 32 of the elite, were attached to it. The remaining coaches and flatcars were hauled by teams of horses. In two hours, everyone had reached the brand-new station at St. John, where there were toasts and testimonials galore.
Although shippers found the railway to be too expensive, the passenger traffic was astonishing. Montreal families could not resist a combined ferry-railway outing which cost only a few shillings. Excursions were so numerous that the clutter of picnickers along the tracks was playing havoc with the schedules. Rules had to be made to curb the carefree behavior of the passengers. Penalties were enforced for walking on top of the coaches while in motion or for smuggling a dog into a first-class compartment. Charles Dickens took a day off from the theatre in Montreal to ride the railway, praising it extravagantly.
The success of the little railway was like a spark in dry tinder. The countryside spawned short lines in all directions. Although serious construction of railways did not occur in Canada until the 1850s, once it began it became a mania, dominating public policy, stimulating trade and industry, building cities, ferrying settlers westward, uprooting the First Nations, and stitching together an improbable country.

James Good's Foundry in Toronto produced the first steam locomotive made in Canada. The 'Toronto' pulled carriages on the Ontario, Simcoe, and Huron Railroad
The black locomotive was a big, iron beauty. Constructed in 1853 to be rugged and sturdy, the Toronto Number 2 Locomotive was the first railroad engine built in Canada.
The Toronto was not the first steam locomotive in Canada – which honour went to the Dorchester. The smaller, lighter steam engine was imported from England but was not quite up to the difficult northern conditions. Built by Robert Stephenson and Company of Newcastle upon Tyne, the Dorchester arrived by ship in 1836. It operated on the first Canadian rail line owned by the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad Company, hauling two passenger coaches from LA prairie to Dorchester in Quebec, according to Collections Canada.
The first Toronto No. 2 engine emerged from James Good’s Foundry in the spring of 1853. James Good emigrated from Ireland to Upper Canada in 1832 at about age 16. He became an ironworker, working his way up to factory owner. With the financial help of his father-in-law, Bartley Bull, in 1840, Good purchased the Union Furnace Company of Toronto, a functioning foundry. After a devastating fire, the factory was rebuilt in 1841 and the business grew. (It was re-named several times: Toronto Locomotive Works, Toronto Engine Works, and later Toronto Stove Works.) James Good bid on and won the contracts to build steam engines for the new rail lines being constructed across the countryside that was to be confederated as Canada.


The never ending story of trains to be continued.
 
Continue with story of trains

The true story of trains:

The Toronto Was a Large, Heavy Locomotive
The locomotive was heavy, weighing in at a hefty 25 tons. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the engine was a 4-4-0, meaning it had four driving wheels and four smaller front wheels, and no rear truck. The wheel placement gradually became known as the predominant American standard. The engineer’s cabin had several large windows and a front-row view of the huge funnel-shaped stack billowing gray smoke. Behind the cabin, a tender stored the fuel and water to feed firebox and heat the boiler.
Fresh out of the foundry on April 16, the Toronto No. 2 “was rolled on temporary wood rails along Queen and York Streets to the permanent track at Front Street,” stated the North American Railway Hall of Fame. A month later, the locomotive was pulling its first four passenger coaches for the Ontario, Simcoe, and Huron Railroad. A short rail line, the train’s initial run was from Toronto to Machell’s Corners (now Aurora). The route eventually lengthened to 94 miles one-way, saving riders from a three-week ship voyage through the lakes.


June 14, 1886:
The Grand Trunk Railway inaugurates a new overnight train departing Montreal at 11:55 PM and arriving in Toronto at 11:50 AM. This new service provided a more convenient through connection from Boston and supplemented the existing daytime and overnight trains in each direction. Running time between Montreal and Toronto was about 12 hours, two hours faster than when the service was inaugurated thirty years earlier in 1856. The fastest time now is 4 hours and 48 minutes.

June 14, 1897:
The Grand Trunk Railway inaugurates twice-daily passenger service between Toronto and Buffalo via Suspension Bridge in conjunction with the Lehigh Valley Railroad. This was a competitive response to the new Canadian Pacific/Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo/New York Central service initiated two weeks earlier.

June 14, 1908:
The Canadian Pacific Railway opens the Muskoka Route from Toronto to Sudbury and for the first time the company is able to provide direct service from Toronto to western Canada entirely over its own tracks. With the opening of CP's transcontinental line in 1886, Toronto-B.C. trains traveled as far east as Carleton Junction near Ottawa before finally turning west. CP later made arrangements with the Grand Trunk to carry its transcontinental cars between Toronto and North Bay but the fierce rivalry between the two companies made this service unreliable. One of the most challenging aspects of this new construction was the huge trestle bridge crossing 105 feet above the Seguin River at Parry Sound that took three years to build. At 1,950 feet, it is apparently the longest such structure in Ontario. The community of Parry Sound celebrated the centennial of this event in 2008.

June 14, 1916:
The Canadian Pacific Railway officially opens North Toronto Station although service had actually begun ten days earlier. Toronto Mayor Thomas L. Church presided over the evening festivities held in the waiting room downstairs while an orchestra entertained the guests. The well-wishers then proceeded upstairs to the platforms and cheered as Train No. 24 departed for Montreal and Ottawa at 10 PM while serenaded by a military band.

June 14, 1948:
The Canadian Pacific Railway takes delivery of S-2 switcher No. 7077, the first production diesel-electric locomotive mostly built in Canada. The locomotive had been on display at the Canadian International Trade Fair held at the Exhibition Grounds in Toronto. Earlier diesels were either experimental models built in Canada or imported production units. No. 7077 was one of twenty locomotives jointly built by ALCO and the Montreal Locomotive Works and spent many years working in the Toronto Terminals. The engine was retired in 1984 and donated to the Canadian Railway Museum where it is now on display.



June 14, 1958:
The Toronto Train Trip Association operates an excursion from Toronto to Stratford and back via Hamilton. Canadian National GP9 No. 4456 handled the excursion between Toronto and Hamilton, while Mikado Steamer No. 3423 did the honours between Hamilton and Stratford. At Stratford, the excursionists were treated to an extensive tour of the CN locomotive shops. Mountain No. 6002 was hoisted up on the overhead crane and moved back and forth several times. One of the 2-10-2 Santa Fe locomotives built in the 1920s for helper service between Mimico and Scarborough was observed being converted to snow melting service for the Montreal yards.
 
I like these locomotives-- they're nice. Railfans call these "High Hoods", and you can see why:

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These signals are very rare. There's only one operational one currently in service:

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