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GHOSTS IN THE FOG
Tuesday February 19 dawns in a thick fog. It is a good day to catch up on my rest as my rest period "officially" started 12:00 a.m. this morning. As you may know, I can be called for a 23:59 job and work 11 hours 59 minutes or more with tow-in on my supposed day off. I decide to lie in bed and rest late even though I have not been called off the extra board since I finished up Sunday morning. There has been no significant amount of snow since early January, and the gloom and fog cannot shroud the gray-brown appearance of mud season we have in place of a winter as God intended it to be. I turn the scanner on to see how badly Fagerly has things screwed up today. Par for the course, YSP54 and YSP20 are fighting for space at the south lead, YSP21 and YSP31 are battling on the north end, and MITDA is trying to get to the mainline to hiball out of town. This last bit of news gets me curios, so I log onto the UP employee site to see what's up. Lo and behold, MITDA's lead unit is a STRAIGHT SP SD40, about as ancient a unit as you can find these days. He went on duty at 0900 and 54 was helping triple the train together, so I figure he will start rolling south at about 10:30.
I think to myself it is worth a trip just to hear that old SD40 winding up for the assault on the hill out of the Mississippi River valley. I get over to the south end of the yard at 10:15 and he is already on his takeoff roll. I follow along as best I can and pace the units along Concord Street south of the freeway bridge, then pull over and listen as they wind 'em up at Junction Switch, where a connection has been built to enable trains to cross over from the ex-CGW trackage to the Rock Island main. The hogger went from 4th, through 5th and into the 6th notch without even so much as a hint of oily smoke you would expect from an old SP unit. A smile briefly appears on my face; I cannot help but compare how differently things sound on the ground. In the cab the crescendo of noise is just basically a loud hum and you cannot hear the exhaust belching or the turbo whine unless you open the window and stick your head out, especially under bridges and such. I also muse about how different a course I have charted for myself in the last year. Who'd've thunk it ! At Junction Switch the old CGW (now the UP Roseport Sub) is occupied by light power off of OPRRP, a pair of black NS GP38-2s and one of ours that hasn't seen a wash rack for quite a while. I run ahead of MITDA and take up residence at Rich Valley Road, and remember back to a very different February at this very spot 22 years ago.
It was a clear cold sunny Saturday morning just above 0 degrees, and I am awaiting a southbound Rock Island freight out of Inver Grove. The power was a blue GP38-2, a CLEAN SP U25B (wish those were still here !), and a red GE that still proudly proclaimed ROCK ISLAND on her somewhat soiled countenance. It was great fun, myself and high school buddy Gene Hetherington followed and shot this train for miles until we gave up at Northfield. I can still hear the melodic chimes on the Geep; there was no other railroad in town that sounded like them. Most of the chase was along the Milwaukee-owned portion of track, but it did not matter. We all knew the Rock was going to crumble soon.
I am gently returned to the present as I hear the train hammering uphill now. He is blowing for the crossing by the landfill and the EMD chorus is swelling magnificently. The trailing units were newer EMDs that did not make nearly as much sound. Soon the headlights and ditch lights sweep around a curve in the fog. It seems to part as the train grows near, and the horn is still an original SP type. I have heard it many times on SP SD45s that would occasionally wander through on the Rock. The train rushes past at about 40 mph, but I think the Rock Island train was going quite a bit faster. They could really move the trains uphill when they wanted to !
I do a roll-by like a good employee and after the train is done severing the crossing I mosey back past the landfill and take a peek at Roseport Yard, built by the CGW in the late 1950s. The old CGW ends just south of here, and I spot headlights down at the other end of the yard. The headlights make an easterly turn, must be CP power going for a crew change near Cenex. I go over to Cenex and sure enough, there is a red SOO SD40-2 (6614) plus another regular CP SD40-2 spliced by a Red Barn (SD40-2F # 9017). The crews are changing at the gas spur, all adorned in their mandatory orange and yellow-striped safety vests. They also are required to wear hard hats and long sleeve shirts in the complex; must not be too fun in the summer. I talked with a borrow out employee from Mason City who had worked the Roseport Yard; there is a lot of confusing trackage but the work is not too difficult, although the wind gets whipping pretty good through there as it is open farm fields to the west and northwest of the yards.
The fog is even denser than before, so I wander over to a historical marker across the road from Cenex. It makes mention of an Indian tribe that lived between it and the river, and that the marker is also placed on the abandoned right-of-way of the St. Paul Southern. I take a stroll for about a hundred feet or so trying to visualize trolley wire and interurbans sailing across the plains here. I then attempt to follow the SPS right-of-way northward but most of the trail has been obscured by the tremendous residential growth that has occurred in the area in the last 10 years. Visible vestiges still remain but you have to know where to look for them. There was also a B-52 crash out here somewhere in the early 1960's, and a plaque commemorating the event. There are still lots of aluminum fragments that lie just under the surface from that tragic event.
Commemorative plaque near Cenex in Inver Grove Hts.
Left, looking north towards Inver Grove, and right, south towards Hastings on the former St. P. S. r.o.w.
It is time to wander home now; I come across an eastbound CP coal train behind a pair of newer GEs with the golden beaver enshrined on their flanks. They are crossing over from BNSF Track 1 to BNSF 2 and are observing the 25 mph speed limit for crossover movement on the south most crossover. I follow them along on BNSF / CP Joint Track 2 to Grey Cloud Township, where they start accelerating to track speed, then I let them go. It is just not the same as a wild mix of Milwaukee GEs that would occasionally smoke and steam through on their way east after the Milwaukee's west coast shutdown. It is time to bid farewell to the ghosts of the past, but not to forget them.
