This afternoon (Tuesday 7/14/09), I was surprised (to say the very least) to hear, and then see, a four-car METRA train operating northbound on the CSX (ex-B&OCT) freight line that runs more-or-less along Rockwell Avenue along the east edge of Evergreen Park, Illinois. I’ve never seen any other passenger moves on that line in the 38 years that I’ve lived across the street from that line (I forget what it’s “official” designation/name is), so this was a truly out of the ordinary sighting. Even stranger is the fact the the F40 locomotive was running in a “normal” orientation, facing forward, on the front end of the four gallery cars, when METRA always runs their trains heading toward downtown Chicago with the locomotive “in reverse” pushing on the back end of the inbound train. (The outbound trains heading for the suburbs then have the locomotive in the “normal” orientation.) I did see people standing near the doorways of some of the center vestibules of the cars, so it didn’t appear to be a totally-empty light-equipment move. Can anyone explain “what’s up with this”? Was is some sort of line-inspection train on the CSX, or a charter of some sort, or was it a really-strangely-routed detour off one of the south-side METRA routes (which would probably have been the Rock Island District lines)?
There was a CREATE inspection train today, with bigwigs from all the Chicago area railroads on board. I have no doubt that is what you saw.
That makes sense.
That line sees a fair number of UP and BNSF unit coal trains, plus intermodals, in addition to quite a few of CSX’s own trains, so it would make lots of sense (to me at least) for CREATE to include it in their “fact-finding” expeditions. Between the west end of Barr Yard in Riverdale, through Blue Island, and up to 87th Street in Chicago, it crosses about a dozen east-west city through streets at grade plus there’s a pair of fairly tight “right-angle” curves at 83rd Street that require slow speeds, all of which probably generated CREATE’s interest.
Thanks for the quick info.
Alan
Illinois’ governor recently signed a large infrastructure bill, which will supposedly (I haven’t looked for specifics yet) aid some specific CREATE projects.