Category: Chuck Hinrichs

When the tri and bi levels were open, at night one would see folks riding in style.  The keys are in the vehicles and some gas in the tanks.  In the summer the vehicles were running, with the a/c, in the winter, the heaters, along with radios/stereos and dome/interior lights on at night, some folks reading, what I can only assume, to be the Wall Street Journal.  Tractors and combines with enclosed cabs were also a good choice.

Once got a call from Thatcher Plastics on the Island in Muscatine, that they had problem with a covered hopper load of plastic pellets.  The carman and I went down to do an OS&D. Seems someone decided it would be a smooth dry ride on top of the plastic pellets, with having dug out enough of the pellets to be low enough in the commodity that he/she could close in the inlet cap. This decision also included using that load of pellets as their personal waste basket and bathroom.  Needless to say, the load was deemed contaminated and rejected.

Another incident involved the police calling the Depot, stating a rail car had a fire in the rail car. We got the hoghead to whoa that rail car in front of the Depot.  Found one of the rail riders had started a fire in a wooden floored gondola and just his luck, the floor caught on fire.  The fire was put out and the rail rider then started, left, right, left, right.

Just another day in that wild and wacky world of railroading.

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I saw a couple of kids try to hop on a westbound near the trailer park just west of the Newton yard west switch, but it was going just a bit too fast for them.

James Norman Hall of Colfax, who co-wrote Mutiny on the Bounty, wrote in the book, My Island Home about he and a friend catching a ride at night on the pilot of a locomotive when a Rock Island train stopped for water in Colfax and riding to Grinnell, and then how they caught a westbound home.  Grinnell had a large hobo jungle south of the CRI&P/M&StL Jct near a pond.  Hall also reported that when a Rock Island coal train would stall or have to double the hill on the grade up to Mitchellville, the locals would avail themselves to free winter fuel.

Back in the twenties a local reporter, who was trying to be politically correct for the time,  wrote that  a “negro tourist” described the wreck of a Rock Island freight on which he was riding that was speeding down grade into Kellogg and derailed.  There’s a culvert a few hundred yards west of the Newton CRI&P depot known as bum’s tunnel.

Another hangout was under  the  West 8th Street  “overhead rainbow bridge” in Newton and a transient was killed there by the eastbound Rocky Mountain Rocket in the middle of the night. My father said there used to be hobo shorthand there telling the hobos that they could get a free meal at his grandmother’s house just east of Washington School on 1st  Ave W in Newton.  Dad said she would serve them a sandwich and coffee on a table in the backyard.  This was back in the twenties.

-John Nelson, Kellogg, IA

– Photos on the Henderson Subdivision by Chuck Hinrichs and Bob Moffett

Chuck and Bob Moffett were out to see Gum Lick trestle (a bit of a disappointment as it isn’t visible from any close roadway) and caught a southbound unit train of 3 bay hoppers (GLIX reporting marks, Georgia Power Co) loaded with crushed limestone.  They saw the train at Crofton and then hustled south to catch it again at the bridge just north of North Kelly.  Information from Keith Kittinger and Steve Miller indicate that the train originates on either the P&L or the Fredonia branch off the P&L and heads south from the CSX connection at Madisonville.  “I thought I heard a muffled train ID on the scanner and I think it Was K146.” – Chuck Hinrichs 

A cool, breezy but sunny fall afternoon greeted 14 members and 5 guests at the Veterans Park in Crofton for the 4th annual Chapter Picnic. CSX cooperated with 3 intermodals and 2 regular freights during the afternoon. Wally Watts brought his German steam engines for everyone’s enjoyment between trains. Steve Miller had his computer set-up to keep track of trains and Chuck Hinrichs provided the soft drinks and chips. The Easterlys were on hand with their new home – a travel trailer – and were headed to Missouri after the picnic. The Country Cupboard supplied the usual great sandwiches for those that didn’t bring lunch. All in all a pretty good afternoon with a good chance to mix with the members in a perfectly relaxed atmosphere. (Story and photos by Chuck Hinrichs)

WHEN: Saturday, November 21, 2009.

WHERE: Whistle Stop Restaurant (former IC freighthouse), 701 Main Street, Mendota, Illinois (just south of Amtrak station and Mendota Union Depot Museum)

PRICING: $25 per person for entire event. Includes entrance to swap session, dinner, and evening show.
$2 for those attending only the swap
$5 table fee for vendors

SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO: ICRHA 2009 Annual Meeting, c/o Mike Hogan, 15408 Pine Drive, Oak Forest, IL 60452-1623

PROGRAM: Double-header! Former ICG employee Jerry Pyfer will present a sound/slide presentation assembled exclusively for the ICRHA 2009 Annual meeting.  Jerry, who is also currently president of the North Western Illinois Chapter-NRHS, is well-known for his clever, entertaining, and popular slide presentations (his program at the Milwaukee Road Historical Association meet in Terre Haute last year drew a standing ovation).

His show for the ICRHA will focus on the 1970s-era Illinois Central Gulf. For our second program, Rory and Cedric Peterson present a program featuring the work of their late father, Roy Peterson. We will see STEAM and early-diesel-era Illinois Central scenes in the Rockford/Freeport/southern Wisconsin area. (Picture if you would, a steam-powered IC Hawkeye flying over The Milwaukee Road at Genoa, Illinois, in the 1930s, or bucolic scenes of the Dodgeville, Wis., branch.)

Roy photographed much of northern Illinois from 1930 into the 1960s, and you will also see some Milwaukee Road, Chicago & North Western, and Burlington thrown into the mix. This will largely be unpublished material that has only been seen by a few people to date.

-submitted by Chuck Hinrichs

I headed out early Friday morning for Cincinnati and the 13th SUMMERAIL. I left my car at Jim Pearson’s in Richland (near Madisonville) and loaded my gear in his SUV.  We followed the railroad north to Evansville Indiana and checked out the action at CSX’s yard and got some good shots to start the day.  We continued on north to Princeton Indiana and caught both some CSX and NS action.

State highway 64 took us east and in proximity to the NS line.  We managed to miss three trains on the way to Louisville and missed a couple more on the way through northern Kentucky to Covington just across the river from Cincinnati.  We checked into the Courtyard Marriot right by the river and got a room with a balcony overlooking the elevated rail approach to the bridge over the Ohio River.  We railfans are not too hard to please as long as we are close to the rail action.

As soon as we got our stuff unloaded we headed across the river for the traditional Friday night dinner at Camp Washington, a Cincinnati chili institution.  The specialty of the house is Chili 5 way (chili, beans, onions, spaghetti and cheese), a salad and iced tea.  Got to meet lots of old friends – I have been to 13 of the 14 SUMMERAL events.  After dinner we headed for CUT (Cincinnati Union Terminal) for the traditional Friday night slide show (just slides and comments) and a visit to Tower A (the home of the Cincinnati Rail Club) and the former control tower when passenger trains were still in vogue.  The slide show attendance has outgrown the Tower A space and the show is now in the CUT auditorium – much more comfortable.  After the slide show Jim and I headed back across the river to get some night shots of downtown Cincinnati and then back to the hotel for a well deserved night’s rest.

Saturday and we were up early, sampled the hotels buffet breakfast and then headed south for a little train watching before the SUMMERAIL program get under way.  We caught a couple of trains but missed several others.  If we were watching CSX a NS train would thunder by and if we were trackside at NS the action was on CSX.  We spent nearly an hour at the CSX/NS crossover and no action.

We got to CUT about noon with time to check out the railroadiana show before the main event got under way at 1:00 PM.  The digital multimedia shows were superb, as usual with a lot of winter scenes and winter action featured.  My favorite of the afternoon session was Mel Patrick’s show of the Rio Grande ‘California Zephyr’ as it headed west from Denver to Logan, Utah.  The scenery was spectacular and the music a perfect compliment to the spectacular photography.

The dinner break found us back across the river in Covington and after checking other possibilities we settled for our favorite, Wertheims, for an excellent German dinner and a couple of glasses of Warsteiners.  The evening shows were good but not quite as good as my morning favorites.  We drove around downtown Cincinnati but didn’t find any photo ops so headed back across the river and the sack.

Sunday found us sleeping in a bit and then on the road for a railfanning trip back to western Kentucky.  We found several good photo spots on the CSX Short Line just south of Covington and at both locations we were able to catch meets of southbound and northbound trains.  We stayed ahead of a southbound train through Verona, Glencoe, Sparta and LaGrange and finally let him catch up with us at Anchorage just east of Louisville.

We followed the P&L south out of Louisville but no action.  We did stop to see the old and decaying IC depot at Kosmodale.  We then headed east to the CSX mainline but, again, no action.  We did hear a train at Elizabethtown but never did find it. We followed US 62 west from Elizabethtown hoping against hope for some P&L action.  We stopped in Central City for a bite to eat and, wouldn’t you know it, as we left Wendy’s we just saw the tail end of an eastbound P&L coal train.  CSX was quiet from Nortonville to Earlington and we got to Jim’s place at a bit after 8:00 PM.  Another trainless hour and I was back home after a great SUMMERAIL weekend.

Above left: W860 coming out of siding at South Kelly. Above Right: W860 is stopped and Q688 is passing at 10 mph. (Photos by Chuck Hinrichs)

CSX had a military movement on the Henderson Sub on Tuesday afternoon, June 9.  The train, W860-07, was south bound and Jim Pearson alerted me to the movement early in the afternoon.  W860 took some three hours weaving it’s way through the track work around Nortonville and I finally caught up with it at Kelly.

Power was a UP and an SP GE pulling a 22 car train of green DODX 6 axle flat cars with a pair of tanks on each car.  The train was moving with some wide load restrictions.

W860 took each siding and when meeting an opposing train came to a complete stop while the passing train was limited to 10 mph.  I have no information as to the source or destination of the movement.  Submission and photos by Chuck Hinrichs

Several chapter members and other guests visited Bill Thomas’s Hook Line & Singer Railway last Saturday, June 13, at his home in Madisonville.  Trains ran a bit sluggishly at first due to all the crushed vegetation which has grown around and through track so robustly with recent and frequent rains.

Thanks to all who dropped by.  We hope to do this again in the fall – BYOB (Bring your own [leaf] bag)

On Monday evening, March 23rd, Wallace Henderson and I were on our way to Madisonville for dinner at Applebee’s and then the Chapter meeting. As we passed through Crofton – we were traveling US41 to check for trains – we spotted a pretty weathered CSX locomotive and a couple of work cars in the house track just south of downtown. As we had plenty of time and the light was pretty good we pulled into a church parking lot and grabbed a few shots. The locomotive was CSX 5812, a GE B36-7.

As we got back in the car headed for Madisonville we got to talking about the B36-7s and how they were, back in the late 80s and 90s, the pride of the fleet with three well maintained and clean units on the point of the railroads premier traffic, the intermodals or “piggy-back” trains. We spotted another B36-7 shuffling cars in Atkinson Yard, another less than glamorous assignment.

When I was checking my email the next morning I couldn’t get the B36-7s off my mind and did a little checking on old rosters and determined that some 120 B36-7s were acquired in 1985 by CSX predecessor, Seaboard System. My curiosity was still in overdrive and I dug out my slides from the late 80s and found some shots of the GEs in Seaboard paint and later in CSX paint and still leading the prestigious intermodals on the Henderson Sub.

It’s a bit of a shame to see such proud units relegated to mundane work train or yard service but it is a tribute to their heritage that they are still earning their keep after 23 years of service.

The Chapter was well represented at the annual sHOw at Bowling Green on Saturday March 7, 2009. This year the event was held at the RailPark and Museum in the nicely restored L&N depot on CSX’s main line from Louisville to Nashville. The recently acquired E8 in fresh L&N paint is the feature of the outdoor display along with an RPO and several passenger cars.

The show was held in the depot and presented a good variety of model railroad supplies and equipment. An “N” scale layout was in operation in the show area and the Museum’s HO layout was also in operation as an extra option along with the museum itself. Chapter members I met included Rick Bivins, Keith Kittinger along with his wife and grandson, Rex and Melanie Easterly, Steve Miller and Chuck Hinrichs.

I left before the show closed so other Chapter members may have attended later in the day. It was a very nice show and from what I could tell, very well attended. – Chuck Hinrichs