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| Last updated on September 19, 2022
Watch video clips of Chicago & North Western steam and diesel trains in action, from the Herron Rail Video collection.
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Late fifties, growing up in Fall Creek, Wisconsin. I recall the Twin Cities 400 whizzing through here so fast it seemed all it amounted to was a streak of yellow and green followed by a hint of diesel exhaust and a few leaves fluttering back to earth.
I believe my father was a railfan before that was a documented condition, though I doubt he would have considered himself so. He sure knew a lot about trains, and I’m sure his interest was the genesis of my own. I recall from when I was just a young boy, my dad taking me down to the local depot (there’s a used car lot there now) and showing me, among other things, the friction bearings, of the day, on the pulpwood cars spotted there for loading. I suspect now, the passage of the 400, more often than not, while he and I were poking around there was more than coincidental.
I used to watch those Pacifics on commuter runs on the CNW tracks paralleling Elston Ave from our 3rd story apartment on Chestnut St in the early fifties. CNW had a roundhouse on the Chicago river at the corner of Halsted St and Chicago Ave opposite Montgomery Wards huge warehouse. They also( if memory serves me ) a small yard for commuter cars near Halsted and Erie streets. I went to grammar school just a few blocks east of there ( my old school is now the performing arts highschool for the City of Chicago or it was a few years ago) Foolishly I did not take advantage of many opportunities to watch trains at those locations or the Milwaukee Road’s huge yard and roundhouse near Chicago and Sacramento avenues which I could easily get to on my old Hawthorne bike. Now I only have vague memories and regrets of what I passed up and still miss. Modern railroads, though better for the environment, don’t have the cachet or excitement of forties, fifties steam steam and early diesels, not to mention passenger trains versus Amtrak.
I’ll sound ancient but MEMORIES TIME just hit me!
The 400 with monitor roof coaches, were before my time, but the 400 with all streamlined coaches: that is how I remember it racing through town; later on living in Park Ridge for 30-years, watching (1954-56?) the Atlantic and Pacific Steamers hauling the plain dark green monitor roofed commuter coaches and those better painted coaches of the “Bankers Express” as we called it, (with “ship-to-shore” telephone wire atop the coach, before cell phones) non-stop from Barrington past our little brick station to Clyborn Wye and then to the Main Station; and then there were those ubiquitous but rocking rolling (enchanting only to a railroad lover) brightly painted double deckers commuter coaches, backing into that historic truly “one of a kind” umbrella shed station at Madison St: the way I commuted to college and then commuted to work for a decade.
And the pride came when I finally could do some engineering for a few of the C&NW alignments.
They used to say the old Mayor Dick Daley Senior made Chicago “the City that worked” – – -Hooey !– It was our businesses and our railroads that made Chicago and the Midwest the city and region that worked, and are still at the root of what is making them work !
My mother, sister, and Aunt all worked for the IC
I wish I was there in rail’s golden age. Both my grandfathers worked for the Illinois Central and the CWI.
Used to see the C&NW pass by Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin. Steam then diesel.
Great video. I loved it. What machinery! What teamwork! What romance!
C&NW — memories of boyhood. Summers at Aunt Hopie and Uncle Red’s house, Santa Monica Blvd. Whitefish Bay, WI. Eat the wonderful supper she fixed, then drive in a hurry down to the Hampton Road crossing. Hear it coming — see it come round the bend headlight swinging — magnificent yellow and green — running left handed (because the founder was British I was told) — power, might, speed, clatter and wailing horn and roar as she crosses the road just feet away and races into the twilight, bound for St. Paul. THE 400 — nothing else like her in an 8 year old’s world! Then back in the car, drive through Estabrook Park to Capitol Drive — and the world’s greatest dairy — Uncle Red buys huge ice cream delights for us all! It’s all gone now — the last of the rails have been pulled out of the road, the flashers are gone, it’s just a trail now. It’s all gone — except for the visions of an old man, remembering the rich innocence of boyhood they gave him.
Both my grandfathers were railroad men. My maternal grandfather worked for Long Bell Lumber in Ryderwood, WA as a master machinist, fixing anything from steam donkeys to Climaxes to crummies and 2-6-6-2 Baldwin mallets. My paternal grandfather started as a signal man/ telegrapher in Minot, ND for the GN and migrated Westward from there, ending up retiring as a switch engine operator for MKE in Tacoma, WA. Rich history. Although I remember a few stories, I wish I’d been smart enough as a kid to know what questions to ask them. They saw, smelt, felt and worked on the real stuff we can only dream of today.
What a tragedy that this is all now non-existent. What a loss for the country – they still have modern, clean, safe, fast, reliable train transportation in Europe. Why can’t we bring it back here?
The 400 tonSouth Dakota. What train afterinneapols? Neat video.
My worked and retired off of the Chicago Northwestern and worked as a brakeman then became conductor so it’s in our blood stream. Mom’s retirement comes his.
We were a C&NW family. I remember riding The 400 to visit my Grandparents in Huron, SD in the 1950s. Later I grew up there with the little red brick C&NW depot and 1890s freight house. Lots of memories!