# Steam in Chicago



## Seaboard92 (May 31, 2016)

To anyone in Chicago with an interest in steam. The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society is operating their EX NKP Berkshire No. 765 from Glen of North Glenview to Janesville, WI on June 12. And again from Chicago Union Station to Galesburg, IL on June 25, 26. And if anyone wants to meet another AUer. I'm on crew so I'll be there along with my partner whom is a member who never posts here.


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## railiner (Jun 1, 2016)

Virginia this week, and Illinois next?
You sure do get around....


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## Metra Electric Rider (Jun 1, 2016)

You don't happen to have a link I can pass on, do you? I have a couple friends who might be interested.


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## SarahZ (Jun 1, 2016)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> You don't happen to have a link I can pass on, do you? I have a couple friends who might be interested.


https://fortwaynerailroad.org/events-and-excursions/


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## Palmetto (Jun 1, 2016)

Thanks, Sarah. Looks like there's an excursion out to the Galesburg Railroad Days at the end of June as well.


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## Eric S (Jun 1, 2016)

If only I could make a connection from the early morning Hiawatha to the June 25 Galesburg trip...


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 1, 2016)

Eric S said:


> If only I could make a connection from the early morning Hiawatha to the June 25 Galesburg trip...


Why not go down to Chicago the night before and spend the night! Lots to do in the Second City!


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## Eric S (Jun 2, 2016)

Bob Dylan said:


> Eric S said:
> 
> 
> > If only I could make a connection from the early morning Hiawatha to the June 25 Galesburg trip...
> ...


Oh, just that it makes that trip more expensive - less of a "sure, why not?" and more of a "hmm, gotta think about it" thing (so to speak).


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 2, 2016)

railiner said:


> Virginia this week, and Illinois next?
> 
> You sure do get around....


And who knows where after that. I sure do run around.


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 2, 2016)

Bob Dylan said:


> Eric S said:
> 
> 
> > If only I could make a connection from the early morning Hiawatha to the June 25 Galesburg trip...
> ...


What about driving to the end of a Metra line and taking Metra the rest of the way in. If your in I'm game to meet you


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## NorthShore (Jun 3, 2016)

I'm curious as to where the train is coming from to get to the Glen of N. Glenview that morning.


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 3, 2016)

Western Avenue


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## Metra Electric Rider (Jun 3, 2016)

SarahZ said:


> Metra Electric Rider said:
> 
> 
> > You don't happen to have a link I can pass on, do you? I have a couple friends who might be interested.
> ...


Thanks Sarah!


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## NorthShore (Jun 3, 2016)

Seaboard92 said:


> Western Avenue


Routing?


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 4, 2016)

Up the MILW North line the same line as the Amtrak Hiawatha via Glenview to Glen of North Glenview. Then going toward Fox Lake and Janesville Wi


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## Agent (Jun 4, 2016)

I'm going to be in the Chicago area for part of the week and the weekend up to June 12. It's a family trip so it's not about trains though. We are spending a couple days for sightseeing, and I am allowed to pick a few train spots. I think we'll at least see Nickel Plate Road 765 at Franklin Park's Railroad Day. I might get to see it leave the next morning if I time it right.


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 4, 2016)

We leave the yard at 6 am


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## NorthShore (Jun 4, 2016)

Sigh, coming through my neighborhood but don't know if I will catch it at that early hour. It would be special to see steam through the city. I just missed the Southern Pacific engine that traversed the same line a few years ago.


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## NorthShore (Jun 12, 2016)

Yay....you should have seen me running down Montrose, jumping for joy in the air, running like a crazy nut to cross the street, and just plain loving watching the smoke fly, listening to the whistle, and watching the private cars pass by.

Steam at Mayfair Crossing! Now I finally have a feel for what it must have been like at this intersection in the neighborhood back in the day.


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## Palmetto (Jun 14, 2016)

Fror those of you who like cab rides, here's one of the trip going north on Metra trackage, and moving right along, I might add!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZrsRhruqP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZrsRhruqP4

EDIT: Oh well, that was the wrong link. Anyway, what you saw is the first F125 on its way to California. Taken in Illinois, east of Fort Mad, IA.


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 14, 2016)

On Metra territory we got the engine up to 78-82 range. And yes I was in the Dutch door for it. Buy tickets for our next trip please. We need the sales badly


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## railiner (Jun 14, 2016)

Seaboard92 said:


> On Metra territory we got the engine up to 78-82 range. And yes I was in the Dutch door for it. Buy tickets for our next trip please. We need the sales badly


That must have been a spectacular sight.....\

I am surprised to hear you have trouble selling that excursion, with that magnificent engine, wonderful passenger variety of equipment, and from such a major market....

Many years ago, I was involved in selling mainline, big-time steam excursions, from a smaller market, and our trips sold out early on....different times I suppose, with dwindling interest by the younger generations... :mellow:


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 16, 2016)

I was surprised myself. Part of what I think hurt it was the short notice. I don't think there was enough time to market it


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## railiner (Jun 16, 2016)

That could be a big factor....especially if there are other events at the same time, that appeal to the same basic target market...

We would publicise our excursions well in advance, and as soon as the railroad(s) confirmed our request, we would start selling it....usually several months ahead. And since our trips tended to repeat around the same time annually, our repeat passengers tended to save the dates....


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 17, 2016)

I am curious who you used to work for. There weren't similar events in Chicago area. But 611 just finished its season. And I think the same problem we had was the initial 611 trips by NCTM costing so much going over the Asheville Loops. Which took up so many budgets for the year


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## railiner (Jun 17, 2016)

I was a volunteer with the Intermountain Chapter, NRHS....we ran annual trips on the UPRR with either the 844 or 3985 out of Denver over Sherman Hill to Laramie.

We also ran a few other lesser known trips on short lines and also excursions on scheduled Amtrak or D&RGW trains....


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 17, 2016)

That sounds like a lot of fun. I want to work behind those UP engines. And by the way we have cancelled the next weekend if trips due to low ticket sales


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## railiner (Jun 17, 2016)

It was a lot of fun.....after handling the drudgery of being the "ticket agent", and making over four hundred tickets and mailing them out (all by hand in those pre-internet and computer days {our leader insisted we do it the old-fashioned, time-honored way with Rand McNally type authentic style ticket stock, hand validated with our own validater die and machine, as well as individual car reservation diagrams}, my reward was playing "traveling passenger agent", wearing an authentic style uniform, and collecting tickets on board the train. The UP even supplied us with "lunchbox" railroad Motorola radio's to help coordinate station stops and photo runby's. The ultimate reward was scoring cab rides on the Northern and the Challenger for at least one segment between runby's....


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## George K (Jun 19, 2016)

https://fortwaynerailroad.org/2016/06/galesburg-zephyr-annulled/

Cancelled for lack of sales.



> Our operations have experienced a tremendous amount of success throughout the years, but ticket sales for the GALESBURG ZEPHYR have been less than satisfactory. While interest in these trips has been meaningful, we’ve made the difficult decision to cancel our excursions on June 25th and 26th.


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 19, 2016)

I wish we did a traditional type ticket. My biggest complaint is the tickets actually. It's hard to tell which car from a glance the PAX are going to when I'm pointing them the right direction on a platform. Plus the traditional is a nicer keepsake for passengers.


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## Metra Electric Rider (Jun 20, 2016)

Too bad it's cancelled, money and time got in the way. Perhaps one of our resident social chairs could cross promote it in one of our local non-train-specific organizations, are you listening social coordinator....(or are you social director)


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## railiner (Jun 20, 2016)

What a shame that trip had to be cancelled....would have been a great mainline excursion....


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## railiner (Jun 20, 2016)

Seaboard92 said:


> I wish we did a traditional type ticket. My biggest complaint is the tickets actually. It's hard to tell which car from a glance the PAX are going to when I'm pointing them the right direction on a platform. Plus the traditional is a nicer keepsake for passengers.


Like I said, our leader insisted on all things "railroad authentic"....my right fist still aches from years of pounding that validater....so hard, that a blind person could read the stamp in the ticket by feel....  . We also had ticket jacket 'boarding passes' with the car and seat numbers duplicated for easy direction on the platform. We even had nifty little seat checks we issued as we lifted the tickets. They had a 1930's graphic of a steam locomotive headlight beam with the slogan: "For better times, ship and travel by rail"...a pun that could be interpreted as a better schedule than competing means of travel, or as a nod to the Great Depression....

Our ticket stock was was not pre-printed...we had to either stamp or hand write the origin and destination on the going, the return, the passenger coupon, and the auditor's coupon. We had stamps for Denver as well as Cheyenne and Laramie, where our steam excursions usually ran, but one year we went to Sterling for a change of scene, and I had to hand write that .... 

The tickets were also used for the various short line roads we rode from time to time.....


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 21, 2016)

Now a days a person could probably print them. I still miss the Amtrak paper tickets. I like that system. And I love seat checks. Like last week I had passengers getting off in two stops. It would make it so much easier for me to see which stop I need to retrain them from.


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