Two More Great Catches!

JANUARY 8TH, 2013

2013 was only one week young, and oh my gosh, the great catches just kept on coming! There were two catches on this day, the first being the best catch of the two because it involved a disappearing breed of locomotive on a railroad that sees very little traffic these days.

As I was walking to 17th and Cermak to catch a westbound 322 Pace bus to visit a friend at Yorktown Mall, I heard a sound similar to that made by the blades and motor of a helicopter, and it was coming from the east. My first thought as I approached the lightly used CN Freeport Sub was "What in the world is going on? No! It can't be a train on this dead railroad! It can't be!"

Less than 10 seconds after that thought went through my head, railroad crossing bells sounded, the crossing gates of the CN Freeport Sub at 17th Avenue went down, and I hastily pulled my camcorder out of my coat pocket to film what would be an amazing catch! Pulling a mixed freight westbound along the CNFS was EJ&E #664, an EMD SD38-2 locomotive! 664 is pictured below.

I've researched the "J" before, but after doing so in the evening hours on the day I caught this locomotive, I was very disheartened to learn that the railroad finally went under on January 1st, 2013! CN bought the EJ&E in 2009. Now I want to catch as many EJ&E locomotives as possible before greedy CN decides to paint them all into CN's trademark colors, something I pray doesn't happen entirely.

Second catch of the day. As I was on a Purple Line Express train on my to Evanston to run an errand that required me to go there, I saw a northbound Red Line train, on an adjacent track. This wasn't just any ol' Red Line train, this was a Red Line train consisting entirely of 5000 Series cars, built by Bombardier Transportation in Plattsburg, New York! Now, I'm looking at this train, and I'm thinking to myself, "No way! I'm dreaming! CTA wasn't suppose to put 5000 Series cars on the Red Line until after the five-month-long reconstruction of the Dan Ryan portion of the line! Several news sources stated this in 2012, including the Red Eye, and speaking of, I think I still have that article! I'm glad I caught this train as proof of my sighting! Wow, two nice catches within eight hours! I was a very lucky girl on this day!

Here are the videos of the two great catches for you to watch!
I COULDN'T Believe My Eyes!!! 2:14 NOTE: Excuse the shakiness of the video. I was just so shocked to see a train on this near-dead railroad that I had to get closer!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kgxLTUqfW4

5000 Series Cars on the Red Line?!?! 1:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0blhhodZqo