Got a tip that the pair of remaining Chicago & Northwestern Dash-9’s were going to leaving there usual Global II to Global III transfer run and make some trips up to Wisconsin on former CNW tracks and onto the Adams Sub. Lo and behold about 12noon the pair of CNW #8646 leading and #8701 trailing in typical CNW style rolled through St Francis, WI.
I was trackside even though the weather wasn’t the greatest it was nice to see the two together. Talk is that they will be making a couple of round trips and then heading for storage.
Heading northbound along Mitchell Field near Layton Ave
Westbound at Clement Ave near St Francis, WI
Crossing under 27th Street in Milwaukee alongside Maynard Steel
Nice shots, Keith! I remember some of those spots, even if it has been decades since I operated through there. And I caught the units myself this morning, as they were leaving Proviso.
So they’re up to Dash 9s on the units headed into storage?
Thanks for the nice comments. Well the only way I was able to keep up was the 10mph limit through the curve at St Francis. If wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have gotten most of the shots. Once they cleared St Francis the race was on.
Warms the soul to see that ball and bar logo alive and well. The GE’s weren’t my favorite CNW unit, but beggers certainly can’t be choosers any longer. Oh what I’d give to see a couple of the formely ubiquitous SD40-2 in CNW paint (and no - not Zito yellow).
"After about a year of running in dedicated Global II/III shuttle service, the
two CNWs are due to come out on the main line for one last hurray. The 8646 has
an inspection due on 5/05 and the 5/14, and it looks like they’ll be put into
storage before the inspection is done. As C44-9Ws, these things aren’t exactly
UP’s prime units these days.
-----Keats"
It would seem the end is near. However, it’s not confirmed currently,
Others are saying they might come back, but I’m guessing they’re on the way to a storage line.
Remember, they spent almost all of 2008 running gradually smaller jobs. Reduced to a yard job at the end of the year and continuing into the beginning of 2009.
For them to suddenly return to manifest service makes little sense…Unless they’re headed for storage.
Unless UP decided that they needed bigger power elsewhere. I will take a page from CN: some WC GP40s are being LUGOd and some are leading mainline manifests. Unless someone with direct knowledge of what’s going on would chime in I don’t think I’m going to read too much into any speculation.
I’m not surprised UP’s putting C44-9W into storage since they’re storing SD70Ms less than 10 years old. I think all of UP’s C44-9Ws are former C&NW and SP. They’re not as common on UP’s roster as some other class 1s. On BNSF and NS C40/44-9Ws are almost everywhere.
There was talk about trying to get the last two CNWs for the CNW Historical Society’s charter train in May. They’re going to go from Des Moines to Boone and over the Kate Shelley bridge and, weather permitting, detrain there and talk with Bill Wimmer.
Another engineer in Boone said he had heard they were trying to keep them near Proviso, lest they wander too far and get patched.
[:D] The CNW twins are headed to Des Moines Iowa the weeekend of 14th thru the 18th of May for the CNWHS annual meet. They head an excirstion from Des Moines to the High Bridge on Friday the 14th I am hoping they will be here in Des Monies for the entire meet Larry
Just at lunch and heard the Adams Sub dispatch give the CN(w) 8701 a warrant East from Rock to Butler Yard. Sounds like there is some trackwork around mp300-303 right now which may slow her down. I think that is between Mapleton and Merton, but not exactly sure. mp 305 is at Sussex.
It was an after-arrival warrant for UP3566 Westbound - meeting at Rock probably around 12:15 - or so. Warrants were issued around 11:15.
Best of luck to anyone out fanning today. Hope you get to see them!
At this point, that would be a waste of money and materials. UP only patches units that they intend to keep on their roster for a long period of time. With all of the storing going on now and the C44-9W lease expiring in 2015, UP just doesn’t care that they dont match their roster and would sooner store them than patch them.
And I heard from a reliable source that Omaha has ordered Proviso to store them by may 1st. Whether this is true or not remains a mystery, but this person has very close contact with UP and he rarely is wrong. He said that when they arrive in Proviso on MSSPR, they will make one final run to Council Bluffs on MPRCB, come back on MCBPR, and then head for storage.
I advise all duo chasers to ready your cameras as this may be the last time you ever see them as well as a locomotive with a CNW reporting mark leading a revenue freight train.
The MSSPR arrived in Butler around 16:15 this afternoon with CNW8701 in the lead. They setout a few cars and dropped off some bad order power. It sounded like they would be headed on South, perhaps after a crew change as they were told to leave the units back on the main. They were sitting right by the Capital Drive bridge when I passed by at 16:45.
