Wow, how Eola Yard has changed in all the years since I have been visiting there…here a fellow railfan has shown three SD45’s (when you could see them regularly) in three different schemes (one loos vaguely familiar…like a heritage scheme?)passing the old roundhouse back in the 1970’s. Today the roundhouse is gone (“the house” is still a common term used to denote the turntable area which is where they park the power today), and there is now a Eola Yard office and crew quarters, and some of the railfans who frequented the area back then (including me, but much older now) continue watching the changes happening at Eola. Also, look at the logos on the box cars…how often do we see a Milwaukee Road box car these days? Hardly ever!
The center unit (blue with white stripe) looks like an EMD lease or demo unit. See lots of them (or, the same ones, lots of times!) come by here as part of a consist pulling a coal drag…
Mr. Green, you may be thinking of the Oakway SD60s. The center unit in this shot is a former Great Northern SD45 (as is the third unit).
Back in those days, I’d only go to LaGrange or Western Springs when I wanted to see BN (I remember lashups like that!). And when I did discover Eola, it was the other end of the yard, by the town of Eola–if it could be called such! I remember being amazed by that turntable when I rode a dinky past there once.
Yes Carl, you are right on. I also used to visit only the East end of Eola when I lived off of Diehl Road back from 1978-1982 and also remember the rickety old wooden bridge over the middle of the yard that is gone now (you can still see the old brigdge supports from places in the Stonebridge…get the reference…subdivision). The third unit in the photo is a earlier GN scheme and the second unit is a later “Big Sky Blue” GN scheme. There used to be hundreds of SD45’s and many F45 and FP45 units through there as well…and remember the ever present caboose?
I don’t know…maybe the more things change, the more they stay the same:
Case in point, two railfans (specifically Carl and I) at McClure Road watching a trio of high horsepower diesels moving a train west under the signal bridge:
I do miss the rickety old bridge though. I remember that every time we were headed out to the Fox Valley Mall, I would plead with my parents to go over that bridge. Of all the things I could relive from my childhood, going over that bridge one mroe time would have to rank pretty high. Guess it’s time to go start working on that time machine again!
At the intersection of McClure Road and the mainline. On the Southeast corner of that intersection, diectly across the tracks from the yard offices you will find a access road along the tracks and right there you will find a small dirt lot off the road where we all park. Don’t go beyond the “do not tresspass” signs and you will be OK as there are usually a few railfans there, especially afternoons and weekends. Hope you can join us soon.
It would have been better if BN kept the White stripe from the similar GN paint scheme. After all, the final GN and first BN paint schemes were designed by the same agency within a 5 year period. BN cured that missing stripe problem with their schemes during 1990-95. The Milwaukee Road and Great Northern Boxcars are from the 1950’s. If you see a Milwaukee Road Boxcar now, it would be most likely be one from the last 10 years of the Milwaukee Road. I have ended up with a Williams Trains O Gauge Burlington Northern SD45 Locomotive. It is an interesting interpretation of the SD45 by Williams Trains. I like the gloss on the freshly painted BN SD45 in the photo. I need to go build an O Scale BN-GN-MILW Train now.
A nice a arial view of the yard from date unknown (I’m guessing mid / late 80’s). Oh, how this view has changed! I would like to see the same picture taken today just to compare:
From the looks of BN 6559 with it’s shining paint and rusty coupler,this would be it’s first revenue run.That would date this image as December 1971.I like the image and the fact that 2 GN SD45’s are following the 6559.Great Northern had 27 SD45’s by the time of the BN merger,17 delivered in the simplified orange and green scheme and 9 delivered in Big Sky Blue.GN SD45 412 was part of an order for 10 SD45’s delivered in 1967,but it was not painted in the orange and green of it’s sisters.It was delivered to GN in primer with GN logos on the cab to identify it as a GN unit.412 was painted Big Sky Blue at the GN’s Dale St shops along with SD45 407 in May 1967.You can read about this units adventure in Railfan & Railroad magazine in the 3 part article about the EMD SD45’s(can anyone give issue dates for these?).
The paint schemes of the three SD45s could be combined into one special Heritage scheme on a new BNSF locomotive in the same order as seen in the photograph above.
