First stop, as per Mr. Carello’s guide was in nearby Escanaba. On the day after Christmas there were no clouds to be found – doesn’t that call for mandatory railfanning?
Escanaba is the outlet on Lake Michigan for Canadian National’s ore trains. A dumper, ore yard, and docks line the waterfront north of town. I fret when driving straight into a rail yard, so we parked the car out on the streets. A short trek across a scrap dump and frozen sand dune yielded two SD-45s basking at the south end of the yard.
North of the first pair of locomotives, a radio control set, note caboose, was also idling. Apparently CN wasn’t doing too much on the day after Christmas, at least here.
Next stop was less than a mile away in Wells, at the Escanaba and Lake Superior Railroad. The E&LS is best known for two things. The first is the last remaining pair of Baldwin Sharknose diesels. The second is their attitude. I think the sign says it all.
As far as I can see, the E&LS is more of a junk depository than a railroad. The must run trains to stay in business, but they all seem to be down in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Most of their lines are rusty, packed full of stored or junk equipment, or weed-choked. This rust bucket, albeit a historic rust bucket, was parked in the brush alongside the road into the shop.
A city street leads around to the back of the shop and more junk is on display back there.
The CN main runs a block away from the E&LS shops. To this day, I am still annoyed with myself for not looking around more – the CN crosses the Escanaba River on a fine-looking bridge a stone’s throw away and a train was creeping up on me while I was shooting the E&LS shop. For crying out loud, it certainly wasn’t going anywhere. There also was a jumbo oil/well drilling machine roaring away in the middle of one of the streets and noise muffled the sounds of the oncoming train.
End result was that I heard the train as it whistled for the bridge and only had time to jump into the car, burn rubber, and get to the nearest grade crossing.
Retracing our steps back into Escanaba, we beat the train to the next crossing. I shouldn’t have worried, as it had to stop to line a switch.
Next we checked the Gladstone yard. As a young child, I always remembered the place as bustling and full of action, but the CN is the name of the game today and the depot has been leveled, the yard is half empty, and there are no locomotives in the power rack. The best I could do was shoot wheels.
A successful finish to a successful day came in the form of a great sunset over the frozen pond at my Grandfather and Grandmother’s place.
