Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

All In A Day's Work

Just about exactly two years ago, Mrs. Dr. Phil did a day trip to Chicago (DW) and I got a couple of train pictures out of it.

Well, Mrs. Dr. Phil had a chance to visit with her same grade school friend, and I had an opportunity to (a) shoot trains and (b) visit with a college friend -- so we jumped at it!

This time the plan was to drive to Michigan City IN, backtrack to South Haven MI, then pick up Mrs. Dr. Phil and drive home. (grin)


The morning run from Michigan City to Chicago, crossing over from the South Shore yard to the station track. (Click on photo for larger.)


Mrs. Dr. Phil boarding. Why does SHE get to ride all these trains? Oh, because I'm taking the pictures. Duh. (Click on photo for larger.)


The fairly nice and new, but low-level platform. There is a building, but the ticket machines are on the outside. It's like $8.50 each way for about a two-hour train ride to the Windy City. (Click on photo for larger.)


It took a little monkeying around in Ulead PhotoImpact, but I managed to tease Mrs. Dr. Phil out of the glare of the window as the train rolled by. (Click on photo for larger.)


And off they go. (Click on photo for larger.)


I had about 15-20 minutes before the evening train arrived. A pair of orange South Short EMD GP-38-2 diesels were switching some cars around against the late bright sun. (Click on photo for larger.)


From my platform bench seat, I noticed this large expansion gap where a switch connected to the mainline. Interesting that the gap is so large in the summer and that only two bolts are holding it in place. After peak temperatures of 104°F just the other day up in West Michigan, Sunday afternoon it was just in the 80s and there was a pleasant breeze under the brilliant sunshine. I'll use this picture when I talk about expansion joints in my Fall class... (Click on photo for larger.)


Now arriving... (Click on photo for larger.)


I just had enough time to walk back to my camera bags and swap the D1X and 70-300mm zoom for the D1 and the 12-24mm wide angle zoom. I normally use motor drives on Single frame, but in order to get the older D1 to buffer multiple images, I had preset it for Continuous, and it rattled off three shots at 4.5fps. This is the last shot, heavily backlit, and the best one. Good anticipation! (Click on photo for larger.)


Here she is! Back from a visit and a Chicago River boat architectural tour. (Click on photo for larger.)

A fun time was had by all. I had lunch at the Thirsty Perch in South Haven MI with Cole and John -- and because they had all sorts of lovely spicy offerings, dinner with Mrs. Dr. Phil at the Thirsty Perch in South Haven MI on the way home. Funny Thing 1: I had the same waitress, who was delighted to have a repeat customer on the same day. Funny Thing 2: As we exited the restaurant at about 9:45pm EDT (the Michigan City IN trains run on CDT), Mrs. Dr. Phil practically walked into someone she knew from graduate school the other year. None of us actually live in South Haven IN. (grin)

The world can be a very small place at times.

Dr. Phil

Plan C

Mrs. Dr. Phil took a day trip to Chicago to visit with a grade school classmate before they go back to Germany. Chicago is just on the other side of Lake Michigan, but getting there is another problem. There are two ferries which cross the lake, but one goes to Milwaukee and the other much further north in Wisconsin. (I'd love it if there was a direct ferry to Chicago.) I don't remember what Plan A was, but Plan B was to drive Mrs. Dr. Phil to Michigan City IN and take the South Shore electric train to/from Chicago -- particularly handy because that line also serves the Illinois Central/Metra line to Hyde Park. Then I pointed out that she could take the Amtrak train from Holland in the morning and the South Shore coming back, and we wouldn't have to get up nearly so early, so that became Plan C.


Spectacular weather for the 8:20am EDT arrival of the Pere Marquette, making its first stop in Holland after starting in Grand Rapids. Heavily funded by the State of Michigan, the Pere Marquette not only gets Superliner coaches, it gets a lot of passengers. Lots of people crowding the platform and the parking lot looked full. So I dropped Mrs. Dr. Phil off and then circled back to the lot to sit and wait to photograph the train.

A Strange Visitor

But what's this hanging on the end of the train? A private dome car?

A former Burlington Route stainless steel streamliner dome car, Silver Splendor.

Turned out it was being used by some group -- they were loading on a bunch of coolers and looked to be ready to make a party out of it.

The platform at Holland isn't all that long, so after they boarded the Amtrak passengers, they pulled ahead, blocking 8th Street, and then boarded the private dome car. There's a guy who's a regular railfan and sometime stringer for the local newspapers that I've met before at the Holland station -- and he was really surprised that the grapevine hadn't alerted anyone about the CB&Q dome car. (grin)

And Later That Night

There are two Michigan City IN South Shore stations -- and I've never been to either one. Or ridden the South Shore for that matter, despite all the years I was in Chicagoland. However, the Caroll Avenue station not only had many more parking spaces, it was closer to the freeway, so we decided to rendezvous there. Mrs. Dr. Phil's train was scheduled to arrive at 11:05pm CDT. Google Maps pegged the drive from Allendale at 119 miles and 2 hours 16 minutes. So I left around 9:30pm EDT and with stops for gas and slowdowns for all manners of construction, I arrived in Michigan City just after some rain about 20-25 minutes to spare.

The South Shore has always struck me as a very practical little railroad. The parking lots for 200+ cars are stuffed around a series of crossing railroad tracks and late at night on a Saturday were surprisingly full.


I turned the flash off to get this arriving blurred shot -- the guy in the reflective safety vest is from the car shops down the track. The four-car train was split in two and he took the back half to park overnight, while the remaining two cars went on to South Bend. He said they run over 80% on time, with a ±4 minute window, and they were right on the outside edge.

Anyway, Mrs. Dr. Phil had a lovely time. Amtrak was delayed twice on the way to Chicago -- once to wait for a long coal train to pass on the hill south of St. Joseph MI and once for the inevitable delays at the complex interlocking at Porter IN -- getting in about an hour late. So by the time she got home, she joked she was already running on about Plan G. (grin)

Just past midnight Eastern and it was still near 80°F and muggy. Got home around 2:30am. Nice to see some trains. (double-track-grin)

Dr. Phil