I just posted a few more photos in the Oregon folder in our Photos
section. These are from the same fan trip - a way freight with 5632 on
June 23(?), 1962. I know Tom Mack and Dave Sarther, at least, are
modeling this area and were interested in the look of the land back
then. I wish I had more showing the immediate vicinity of the depot,
but apparently that crummy black & white I posted a year ago was the
the only one. Hopefully, these will be of some small use.
The first shot is taken from the same highway overpass as the b&w
photo, but looking westbound. 5632 is on the Mt. Morris track, and you
can see the beginning of the branch heading off to the right. Our
engine is backing up to retrieve a BE-1 express car, which has been
spotted at the beginning of the branch. Don't know whether it was
empty or loaded, but in either case this was the only 'freight' we
had on our return trip to Chicago that day (outbound we had
considerably more).
The next two shots are at the opposite (east) end of the 'yard' (yes,
I know, technically it wasn't one), just east of the depot. You can
see a couple of the sheds there and glimpse some of the cars and
equipment on the tracks at that end. The first shot shows what I take
to be the Empire Builder, led by 9947. Just behind and to the left of
the E8 you can barely see the Mt. Morris/Oregon switcher.
The last photo shows 5 greybacks, led by F7 166C coming through with a
long freight. At the far right you can see just a tiny bit of the Rock
River bridge. And let me tell you, that train was moving! Seven or 8
years ago, I posted a story about it, which I'll repeat here, now that
I've found the photo.
5632 had picked up its return load, and we were waiting to reboard our
train, milling around, taking pictures, inspecting the engine, and
exploring the site. As you can see in the b&w photo, the grounds and
tracks around the depot were full of people. Suddenly I saw the
engineer push his way through the crowd, shoving people shoving left
and right out of his way, and dash up the ladder into the cab.
Immediately he let out a series of short ear-splitting blasts on the
whistle. Since I was just 14 then and a neophyte railfan, I didn't get
it at first. But it didn't take more than a few seconds to see the
cause of his alarm. This long manifest freight suddenly appeared out
of the trees on the opposite side of the river (I don't think anyone
heard or saw it coming - not sure they could have), and was already
barreling onto the east end of the bridge. I don't know the train's
speed, but it was closing on us REALLY FAST. Needless to say, everyone
scattered. There was one kid who was left on the track alone, frozen
temporarily, probably unsure about which way to run. He did get out of
danger in time, but only by a matter of seconds.
The moral here is that even though we were all supposedly
railroad-savvy, none of us heard or saw that train coming; nor could
the oncoming freight have seen us until it was way too late to stop or
even slow down much. Had it not been for our engineer's urgency, we
could easily have seen a major tragedy. More recently this incident
also made me think about the rather arcane system of signals (i.e.,
whistles) used on American railroads. I'm told that European railroads
(on the Continent, at least) don't use anything so complex. I've never
known how the American system of long and short whistles came into
being, whether it was related to Morse Code or something else. But
whatever their origin, the alarm signal seems to be an exception. It
needs no interpretation, but touches on something much more basic -
deeper even than human consciousness. It's actually the same signal my
parrot uses when he sees a hawk or a cat out the window - a series of
very short, very loud bursts, repeated over and over until you know
it's heard: an instant attention grabber with no ambiguity - the most
essential information conveyed in the least amount of time.
-Jonathan
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