Western Railroad Discussion > CN freight plowing through lake effect snow in Chicago

After hours and hours shoveling for the last two days I wanted to catch a train doing it's own plowing through all the snow that has fallen in the Chicago area. For that, CN's Chicago Sub has the advantage of being lightly trafficked, so the snow is pristine. The City of New Orleans doesn't run today, so chance #1 was M338 heading south this morning, but I messed that up. It cleared off Main 2. Chance #2 was its counterpart, M337, heading north around noon. That isn't far off the normal timing, but it also sat for awhile near Homewood, so maybe it is yesterdays. The CSX engines and CSX boxcars right behind them are misleading; it is a CN train. The next freight by here was a loaded ethanol train, with two NS GE's for power a few hours later. Lake Michigan is right behind these shots. I live about a mile from here, and I this recent lake effect storm put something like 12-16" on top of the original 12" from a few weeks ago that has compressed a bit. Now I'm at 24" in my yard.

In the video, the first clip before showing M337 plowing through the fresh snow was a surprise; Metra SW1500 #9 heading south solo. I've never seen a diesel on the Metra electric, but it does have that mechanism in the front for working with the electric equipment. In both video clips my tripod was causing problems, but, better than nothing.

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Last, an overhead look at the tracks in the deep snow afterwards.

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Great shots! How many freight trains per day go by this location? Are most trains interchange to the foreign roads?

Thank you in advance.

From what I know, between 4-10/day, only the extras get interchanged. M337/338 between Kirk Yard and Iowa are daily. L536/537 between Glenn Yard and Kirk Yard are daily. The weather has really thrown off their schedules lately; their timing has been unpredictable lately and there have been what seems like extras and light power moves. There is also a local that goes between Glenn and Homewood a couple times a week at random.

Otherwise, it is grain, ethanol, or DDG trains from the Iowa line. Some of these get interchanged; for example, I think that some of the ethanol goes to NS. I've been wondering if they do that by running around it at Kensington and then using the BRC interchange.

inCHI Wrote:
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> From what I know, between 4-10/day, only the
> extras get interchanged. M337/338 between Kirk
> Yard and Iowa are daily. L536/537 between Glenn
> Yard and Kirk Yard are daily. The weather has
> really thrown off their schedules lately; their
> timing has been unpredictable lately and there
> have been what seems like extras and light power
> moves. There is also a local that goes between
> Glenn and Homewood a couple times a week at
> random.
>
> Otherwise, it is grain, ethanol, or DDG trains
> from the Iowa line. Some of these get
> interchanged; for example, I think that some of
> the ethanol goes to NS. I've been wondering if
> they do that by running around it at Kensington
> and then using the BRC interchange.

Those ethanols could also gain the NS ex-NYC near Gary Airport by running via the Matteson connection to the ex-J too? At least saving the run around at Kensington.

Unless the routing is via the ex-NKP via Pullman Junction.

Neat video!  However, the traffic didn't look quite right to me for M337.  Turns out the train is actually X49191, last trace shows it departing South Stateline, IL at 0200 2/17.  Heading up to Canada.

Great stuff!  Thanks for posting.

Great video!  Love the Metra light switcher zipping along.  It made me giggle a bit.  The meet with the Metra Electric was nice too.  Right place, right time.

Andy