If anyone has figured out from my name, I do live in Glen Ellyn Illinois, and boy oh boy was their a show yesturady. At the parade, the first train I saw was ex. CNW 8661 followed by an AC4400, then the next train has 2 SD45-T2’s on it, then the next is a coal train with an SD9043MAC, and an SD40-2, then as the parade comes to a close their is an SW1500 along with a Cotton Belt and 6 other engines. Then at night, their was a Rio Grande with 3 UP SD70M’s running into the rainboy which ended on the train tracks. Their was a new Fireworks show, where everything was a shape. It was loud and fun. Now I think that had to be the best July Fourth ever!
I came through Glen Ellyn on Sunday night (7/3) at @7:45. I got lucky and paced westbound MSKNP (Selkirk, NY-N. PLatte, NE) through the S-curves between Glen Ellyn and Wheaton (College Ave.). You have a clear view of the tracks since they relandscaped the area. MSKNP went through Glen Ellyn at @30 mph and then accelerated through the S-curves getting it up to @40mph. At College Ave. a eastbound stacker (ZLAAP?) came roaring through meeting MSKNP on the reverse curve. I had to slow down & make my way through Wheaton so I lost MSKNP. On the west side of Wheaton a coal train was holding on track #2.
My daughter and future son-in-law took us to dinner at the Glen Oak restaurant Sunday–first time I’ve been there in years. They added a small wing onto the south end, with windows affording a pretty good view of the tracks (not close, but panoramic enough for one to see a given car for several seconds). In the 50 minutes we were there, we had five trains.
(I just realized I forgot to mention the obvious–the Glen Oak is in Glen Ellyn, west of the main part of downtown and east of the curves Chris was describing. I could remind everyone about the infamous Glen Ellyn wreck that occurred on the curve in 1976, but that’s another story.)
The restaurant is on Pennsylvania Avenue, a couple of blocks west of Main Street, south side of the street.
The wreck occurred on Sunday, May 16, 1976, when an eastbound piggyback train turned a rail on the center track, and derailed into the path of another eastbound freight on the outside track of the curve. The locomotives of that train wound up in and across Pennsylvania Avenue near the corner of Kenilworth. There’s an apartment complex with red brick walls by the entrance to the parking lot; it’s fairly easy to see where the damage to these walls was repaired (the report states that this damage was caused by a piggyback car from the first derailed train).
An anhydrous ammonia tank car was ruptured during the derailment, forcing an evacuation. When the ammonia cloud was hosed down, the runoff got into the storm sewer system, polluting Lake Ellyn and killing he fi***herein.
One crew injury, 14 civilians treated for ammonia inhalation. Cause was determined to be track maintenance inadequate for the FRA standard and authorized speed on the track.