Railroaders' Nostalgia > A Yard at Sunrise

Sunrise in a freight yard is a neat time if you have switched cars all night as I experienced many times working as a switchman for the Chicago and Northwestern Railway during the summer College break of 1965. Third trick at Proviso Yard was, if memory serves, 11:00 pm to 7:00 am. The night had been cooler and the first light quite welcome unless I was half asleep on the front porch of a gurgling switch engine. Proviso is just west of Chicago in the inner suburbs.

While I took many pictures in Proviso Yard I never caught a sunrise scene. I did however the summer before while working as a leverman/operator for the Burlington in St. Paul. Oakland Tower was a few miles southeast from the downtown YMCA. I could walk from the YMCA through SPUD, past the GN engine facility, and along the joint CB&Q/MILW mainline between Dayton's Buff and Pigs Eye Yards past a couple towers before I reached Oakland Tower.

When I took this morning picture of Northern Pacific 151, a SW1200, I could have been walking to or from the tower because I was working the swing trick. The picture has the actual bluff named Dayton's Bluff in the background, so I'm thinking the NP crew is returning home from Pigs Eye or Dayton's Bluff Yard with a transfer. The NP baggage and passenger car in the yard tell me I was close to SPUD instead of farther south between the two freight yards. Being next to the Mississippi River is the reason for the light fog. I wonder what I climbed up on?

Please enjoy this first-light photograph,
Marty Bernard



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/14 15:57 by MartyBernard.

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Sunrise is always nice when you law at 7 or 8 am. Sunrise means just a short time to go !

That's the NP coach yard to the left I recall. You may be on some rolling stock, or a signal. Not sure.

Al Seever
Phoenix, AZ

NSDTK Wrote:
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> Sunrise is always nice when you law at 7 or 8 am.
> Sunrise means just a short time to go !

Yep, and then heading for a bar that opens at 7am for the night-shift workers.....

The 151 is on track 6 in the Q's North Yard. If you weren't in the Q's Division St. Tower, you were on the stairway.

The NP job to Dayton's Bluff was once a day, mid- to late afternoon, and he came back light, so that isn't him. I think he's coming back from the "Belt" Yard, now called Hoffman Ave., having crossed over the Q/MILW mains at Hoffman Ave. Tower. The NP went down there 2 or 3 times a day, out of Mississippi Street.

Great pic. Thanks for posting!

-John



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/14 13:22 by LarryDoyle.