South view from the Roosevelt Road overpass. Photo by Roman.
Bridge decoration on the Roosevelt Road overpass. Photo by Roman.
Nickel Plate 765 excursion from the Roosevelt Road Overpass in Chicago. Photo by Roman.
View southwestward from the Roosevelt Rd overpass. Photo by Roman.
Bridge decoration on the Roosevelt Road overpass. Photo by Roman
Click on any image to enlarge it.
Roosevelt Road between State Street and Canal Street in Chicago is an extended overpass. In 2018, it provides a prospect for train watching tracks into LaSalle Steet Station and Union Station, including the AMTRAK yards. But it also provides a view of a pretty amazing stretch of vacant land once occupied by the Rock Island railroad and sundry industry. The bridge is decorated with bronze (I think) sculpture. It’s a pretty busy place, with considerable auto and pedestrian traffic… during the day, at least.
Nickel Plate 765 @ Roosevelt Road pulling into Chicago’s LaSalle Street Station, September 16, 2018. Photo by Roman.
Trainspotters won’t like it, but railroad photography has a lot in common with pornography. While trains ain’t sexual (for most of us, I assume), the photography is representing what is otherwise a sensual experience: the rumble and the roar of the Wabash Cannonball, as the song goes. The same for photographing sex. (Though if there’s a rumble and a roar, it’s probably theatre.) Likewise, there aren’t many camera angles that make sense for either trains or sex so the photography for both tends to be awfully repetitive. But there I was, along with a few dozen other enthusiasts and curious onlookers, on the Roosevelt Road overpass above the METRA tracks. We lined up on the south and north sides of the bridge, waiting in the sun for the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society’s restored steam engine, Nickel Plate #765, to come by on its fourth (and final for the season) “Joliet Rocket” excursion run between Joliet and Chicago on the old Rock Island tracks.
The camera most definitely got in the way of the experience. I’m almost sorry I brought it along.
For those who might be wondering, the old Nickel Plate railroad is now a part of the Norfolk Southern system. No. 765 is a member of the last generation of steam locomotives, built in 1944. It was designed for fast freight service, and performed well by all accounts, but diesel-electric locomotives proved more economical. Steam locomotives actually develop more power at higher speeds, diesel-electrics the opposite, making diesels more useful in more situations. By the time 765 passed under the Roosevelt Road bridge, it was probably travelling at around 10 miles per hour. You’ll note the METRA diesel at the tail end of the train. It provided electrical power for the passenger cars. I’m not sure if there’s any way of turning the train at LaSalle Street Station (probably not), so it may have piloted the train back to Joliet also.
765, incidentally, is a large piece of equipment, weighing over 400 tons. It’s big even by today’s standards. Back in 1944, freight cars were typically 30 or 40 feet long and carried… 50, 60 tons of cargo, IIRC. Imagining 765 at the head of fifty to a hundred of these smallish freight cars travelling at 60 miles per hour… Impressive. Plus back then freight cars were not equipped with roller bearings but had journal bearings lubricated with oil soaked rags. They were seriously noisy compared to rolling stock today. Talk about the “rumble and the roar” thundering by in a cloud of coal smoke and dust!
I’d recommend Roosevelt Road as a train watching location in Chicago: hardly a news flash for local trainspotters but maybe useful for outatowners. There are the METRA Rock Island tracks, and just a block or so west, you’ll find the AMTRAK yards and the south tracks into Union Station. In the distance to the south, there’s the St. Charles Air Line. It’s easily accessible and there’s always something going on. Since much of it is passenger trains, it’s also scheduled.
and I could not be more fragile if I were wet toilet paper…
Rain in the Alley at Night. Photo by Roman
Begging your pardon, don’t believe everything you read on the web, not to mention elsewhere. I’m actually rather content, politics aside, but once the title to this post was in place, the next line came naturally. There should be a story following, but I have nothing more. This isn’t an apology as the two lines compliment the photos very nicely, thank you, but a friend of mine was a suicide several months ago so that context makes the lines a bit fraught. Suicide might be a reasonable part of an accompanying story, but I find it to be difficult to imagine, except maybe as an altruistic sacrifice, so what could I do with it in a first-person story? There’s no good day for banana fish. Maybe that would be it.
I do regret not catching any lightning in the photos, though that’s not so easy.
