DANVILLE FLYER A PUBLICATION OF THE DANVILLE JUNCTION CHAPTER, INC,

The DANVILLE FLYER is published monthly by the DANVILLE JUNCTION CHAPTER of the NATIONAL RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY for its members and other interestedNRHS persons. The DANVILLE JUNCTION CHAPTER, NRHS, is a not-for-profit corporation organized to preserve the history of railroading in Eastern Illinois and Western Indiana and operates a museum located in the former Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad depot on East Benton Street in Rossville, Illinois. The museum is open weekends from Memorial Day to Labor Day, noon to 4 PM, and features many railroad displays plus a large operating HO model railroad. Membership in the Chapter is open to anyone having an interest in any aspect of railroading. Dues per year are $12.00 for Chapter membership in addition to $17.00 for NRHS membership. Meetings are held on the third (3rd) Thursday of each month (except July, August and December) at the Cooke Business Forms, N. Vermilion Street, next to the Central Illinois Bank, Danville, Il. beginning at 7:30 PM Central Time. OFFICERS FOR 1997 - Our 29th Year PRESIDENT: Larry Prosser VICE PRESIDENT: Jesse E. Bennett SECRETARY: William Darner TREASURER: Allen Cooke NATIONAL DIRECTOR: R. M. Schroeder PROGRAM CHAIRMAN: William Darner MUSEUM DIRECTOR: Robert Gallippi HISTORIAN: Jesse Bennett EDITOR: Richard M. Schroeder - [email protected] PUBLISHER: Allen Cooke P.O. Box 1013 Cooke Business Forms,Inc. Danville, IL. 61834-1013 John Cooke Sr., Honorary Member MEMBER: Illinois State Historical Society - Illinois Association of Museums Visit our Chapter WWW Home Page On-Line - http://www.prairienet.org/djc-nrhs/

Volume 29 January 1997 Number 1

Coming Events April 5 & 6, 1997 Next Meeting Model Train Show and Swap Meet - Lin- January 16, 1997 The next meeting will be January 16, coln Square Mall, Urbana, IL 10-6 on Sat- 1997 at Cooke Business Forms, 2500 N. Monthly meeting beginning at 7:30 urday, 11-5 on Sunday. Vermilion Street, Danville, Illinois. PM at Cooke Business Forms, 2500 N. Business meeting will begin at 7:30 PM Vermilion St in Danville. April 19, 1997 with the program starting around 8:15 Watseka, IL - C&EI HS Annual Meeting at PM. February 9, 1997 Watseka Depot. Meeting, swap tables, On December 8, 1996, member Raymond displays, dedication of museum room Wheaton, IL - Great America Train Show Goodling of Bondville, Illinois passed and annual meeting. - DuPage Co. Fairgrounds, 10-4, $5. away of a heart attack. Ray was not know to many of our members as he joined the February 23, 1997 June 25-29, 1997 chapter about 2 years ago after being an associate member for several years. Ray Springfield, IL - Springfield Model NRHS Convention, Salt Lake City, Utah. and his wife Kay were very active in the Railroad Club’s 7th annual show at Ill. Monticello Railway Museum. He will be Bldg, Fairgrounds, 10-4, adm $2 missed by that fine organization. Our March 1, 1997 sympathy goes out to Kay and his family. We hope that you had an enjoyable Christ- Indianapolis, IN - Model Railroad and mas and New Years. As we start another Toy Show - St. Joseph Church, 1375 S. year we look forward to the coming of Mickley Ave. $2. spring and the opening of the museum, ever, shots in bright cloudy days some- vacations and railfanning. Make your Chapter Home Page times make better photos. They must be plans now for the model show in Urbana, Over the last year you have been aware of clear. We have the capability of scan- the C&EI meeting in Watseka and the the home page on Internet that was cre- ning and then cropping the photo to take NRHS convention in Utah. ated by member Doug Nipper. For those out the unwanted portion of the photo ( side poles, other railfans or daisy pickers). Conrail of you that have access to the Web I hope you have checked it out along with other Send your photo or slide to the chapter at Conrail in October set a new monthly sites. In late December Doug spent a the post office box. Photos may be stan- record for intermodal volume, transport- Sunday afternoon rebuilding the page dard size, be sure to put cardboard around ing 162,000 trailers and containers dur- and I must say it looks great. to prevent bending. We will list those ing the month. For the first ten months We ask that you check it out and give us that are posted in the issue of the news- of 1996 Conrail handled 1.32 million letter. We hope to put 4-5 photos on line intermodal units, an increase of five per- each quarter. If you want to see your cent over 1995. photo, and don’t have access to a com- 1997 Dues puter on line, come to the meeting and Conrail and Guilford Rail System last Allen or Doug will get on line at Cooke’s month announced the imminent startup Last month we sent your renewal and let you look. of DownEast Express, a joint intermodal notice for 1997 dues. This included In addition to getting the photos on line service linking Guilford’s soon-to-open renewal notice for the NRHS and the we now have a better capability of get- terminal at Waterville, Me with major museum. markets in the Midwest and Southeast. ting your photo in the newsletter. At the The NRHS renewal form is a two- same time we are looking at improving Conrail and Union Pacific have begun part form plus it includes your 1997 the quality of the newsletter, providing their Northstar double-stack container membership card. Remove the top your editor has the time. Look for the service from the Texas-Mexico border to portion and return to Allen Cooke changes to occur this spring. the Northeast via the St. Elmo (IL) gate- with your check for $29. Donations Rick way. to the chapter, and /or the NRHS, are Conrail reports that it removed 38 over- appreciated. For museum members head signal bridges as part of its double- please return the form with your stack clearance project across check. Remember, all 1997 dues are UP Sells Lines to Pennsylvania last year, replacing them due by the end of March. The last with ground mast signals. The Bucks issue of the newsletter you will re- BNSF County Courier Times in October car- ceive will be the March issue, unless ried an article describing several high- you have paid your dues. Omaha, December 19 -- Union Pacific way underpasses in Lower Bucks County Railroad today announced the sale of We look forward to having you as a 190 miles of its rail line in Louisiana to which are proving to be choke points for member again in 1997. truck and auto traffic trying to squeeze the Burlington Northern Santa Fe as through them. Most of the “tunnels,” as part of the agreement made to preserve the newspaper calls them, were built of and intensify rail competition as a result your opinion. At the same time we are stone early in the century to support the of the UP/Southern Pacific merger. proposing a new feature in the page. PRR’s Trenton Cut-Off, now Conrail’s Doug has recently acquired a slide scan- Union Pacific also sold its intermodal Morrisville Line, but they “remain so ner and Cooke Business has a flat top facility and the Southern Pacific rail yard sturdy PennDOT officials don’t want to scanner for prints. The new feature, to in Avondale to the BNSF as part of the disturb their structures.” And the police begin this spring, will be an album of package. UP will transfer its intermodal like them because they slow down traffic! photos taken by members of the chapter. operation to the SP facility in Avondale Conrail has purchased the two SD80MAC We invite you to send your slide or print and SP rail yard operations demonstrator units, 8000 and 8001, from of a recent railroad subject. The item will will be transferred to the EMD. They have arrived at Juniata be scanned and placed in the album for Union Pacific facility also Shops for repainting and installation of the world to see. This is a way to get your in Avondale. A rail yard in cab signals and most likely renumbered photo “published”, however, don’t ex- Lafayette, Louisiana was 4128 and 4129. Conrail is expected to pect payment. You will get the gratifica- also sold to BNSF. take delivery of additional AC-drive lo- tion that railroad fans across the country Union Pacific will continue to operate comotives. will be able to see your work. trams over this line through a trackage Via Philadelphia Chapter, Cinders We request that your photos be properly rights agreement with BNSF. BNSF exposed, preferably in sunlight. How- trains will operate over Union Pacific 2 under a trackage rights agreement be- stands for both Iowa and Illinois and the tween Houston, Texas and Iowa Junction, Goodby CP Rail - ‘M” stands for both Missouri and Min- Louisiana. nesota. The new line will have its corpo- Hello I&M Rail rate offices in Davenport, IA at the River Union Pacific conductors and engineers Plaza building. Tentative plans call for who work on this line should see no Link! all crews to be based out of Nahant Yard changes because of this transaction. UP Pending approval by the Surface Trans- in the Quad Cities. employees who work on signals and track portation Board, the new operator of will become BNSF employees following more than 1100-miles of CP Rail track- The new operators held informative meet- the negotiation of the necessary labor age will begin operation around February ings around the early part of December to agreements. 3, 1997. The new railroad will be called talk with the present CP Rail employees. Via UP Home Page the “I&M Rail Link”, evidently the “I” Most of the 700-or so employees are expected to be offered positions with the new operator. The new rail line is to be Kansas City Southern Improves Service on “customer driven”. Which means that they will actively pursue new traffic and 1-20 Rail Corridor try to win back old customers (like General Motors in Janesville, WI). CP Rail por- Kansas City, Mo.--- The Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS) recently increased tions that were described previously: train speeds to 55 mph and reduced transit times on its 529-mile transcontinental rail Chicago to Kansas City, the Davis Jct to corridor between Meridian, Miss., and Alliance, Texas, to expedite peak season Janesville branch, Marquette to Sheldon, intermodal train movements and to accommodate increased traffic. IA; Sabula to LaCrescent, MN; Mason KCS’ intermodal trains are delivering improved transit times between Meridian and City, IA to Comus, MN and Austin to Alliance with increased train speeds up to 55 mph. KCS provides intermodal service Jackson, MN. The new line will also between Atlanta, the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and the Southeast and Southwest in have trackage rights between Marquette, conjunction with Norfolk Southern (NS) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) IA and the Twin Cities. The dispatchers through its Meridian gateway. will initially use the CP Rail’s new dis- patching center in Minneapolis, MN but KCS began upgrading its line between Meridian, Miss., and Shreveport, La., when will eventually move to the Washington it acquired the Mid South Railway in 1993. Since then, the company has made Corporation’s (Montana Rail Link) of- significant capital improvements to upgrade the line with continuous welded rail, fices in Missoula, MT. new tie installations, ballast, bridges and appropriate grade crossing warning Via North Western Illinois Chapter devices. These improvements, along with the construction of 13 new sidings, have enhanced fluidity on this route while simultaneously increasing capacity. “Just a few years ago there were hundreds of speed restrictions on this line and Pennsylvania in the average speed limits often to 25 mph,” explained KCS’ Senior Vice President of Operations Ab Rees. “KCS invested in improvements to replace rail and ties, realign Winter curves and remove switches so we could run our trains at faster speeds necessary to By Rick Schroeder service this important rail market.” After Christmas I usually take a four- According to Bill Graham, KCS’ Senior Vice President-Marketing & Sales, faster plus day trip to watch trains. This started more reliable service has contributed to double-digit growth on the Meridian back when Roy Scrivner and I took trips intermodal corridor over the past three years and prompted the recent opening of a dating back to about 1977. This year I new KCS intermodal facility in Jackson, Miss. approached Bob Gallippi about taking a trip east to watch Conrail and follow the “The improvements further establish KCS-NS-BNSF ex-PRR line from Pittsburgh to Altoona. intermodal service as the preeminent transcontinental rail Bob thought a minute and said yes. route in the United States,” said Graham. “With these new improvements and additional train starts, we expect to We left about 3 AM the morning after continue our positive growth trends.” Christmas. Our first stop was to Conrail’s Pittsburgh office where I visited with the In conjunction with the line improvements, KCS opened up area engineer and meet some of the em- a new intermodal facility in Jackson on Dec. 1 to accommo- ployees I have worked with over the date increasing demand for intermodal service in the South- phone. We spent about an hour and east region. The TOFC/COFC facility features a travel lift and sideloader and is open looked at some great color aerial of the seven days a week, 24 hours a day. east side of Pittsburgh. Vic also gave us Via KCS Industries Internet Home Page a 1991 track chart (had the 1996 with

3 us). We headed east to Pitcarin yard plus leaves the mainline and crosses a bridge. went to the overlook on the east side and Bob wanted to visit his former home and At Bolivar, on the south side of the river, shot the track to the east, then headed to his father’s grave site. the track curves northwest along the Horseshoe Curve. The road that goes river. This was a great small town with under the curve was closed and we had to We ate a late lunch near Pitcarin and neat homes and a small freight house. A backtrack to old Route 22. then headed east. With this being the day half-hour wait produced no trains or talk after Christmas not many trains were on the detectors. After a short tour of the streets of Altoona running. Even though the day was over- we were headed for the curve, arriving cast we found some great photo locations We headed back to Robindale and then about 3:30. We had paralleled a west- - curves - overpass, etc. However, the on a back road to Conpit Junction. Near bound train and thought we could see it trains weren’t cooperating. We missed Lockport you leave the main road and on the curve. Upon arriving we discov- Amtrak and RoadRailer but did see some come to a lookout that is about 300 feet ered the area is no longer free and had to country side. above the town. We saw a westbound wait to pay to get in. Also, we had to “be RoadRailer from the hillside as the train off the grounds” by 4:30 PM. We paid West of Latrobe there is a cut with a crossed the river. Down the hill, (similar our $3.50 and spent an hour watching a bridge overhead. The cut is about 75-100 to Frog Hollow Road - Randy) we came couple of trains as the sun set over the feet deep with a steel truss spanning the into town, turned south and paralleled mountain. We decided to come back in cut. The long sweeping curve would the railroad to Conpit Junction. the morning. make a great shot - for an hour there were no trains, story of the day. We went into At Conpit the double-track mainline is We went into Altoona and found Alto town and then back to Greenburg where about 100 feet away from the road. The tower. We spent some time watching a we spent the night. Conemaugh Line comes in from the west couple of trains until the light of day was and continues east to the Sang Hollow gone. The next morning we went to The next morning was cloudy and cool. Extension (track 3 - this line runs to Juniata Shops to see what was around. We went to Latrobe and then headed east Johnstown). A crossover connects the There was a lot of deadline power plus 4 along the main line to Derry. We caught Conemaugh Line to the main and an- of the new Amtrak P42DC units in primer one train from the overpass but missed other crossover connects the main to the paint. From the shops we went back to one while we were changing locations. Sang Hollow Extension. Crossovers also the overpass at Alto tower and caught The town has two cabooses located near allow movement between tracks 1 and 2. some traffic. At 10:00 the Altoona Rail- the track, one PRR and one bay-window A large power plant is located to the east roaders Memorial Museum opened and ex-NYC painted Conrail. The two are at New Florence and the stacks are in we spent about a half-hour visiting the headquarters for a small museum and line with the tracks. The sun had come displays. They have a lot of equipment in gift shop that hosts Railroad Days. out and the rising steam was bathed in the yard but due to fog and time we did From this point we headed northeast to sunlight. Great shot - no trains for an not go outside to visit. We left and went Gray’s, a small settlement at the base of hour. We decided to head east to to the curve, arriving about 11:00. Busi- the mountain and one of 5 grade cross- Johnstown. ness was quiet for the first 30 minutes or so, then several trains did come past. We ings on the line. We waited about 15 As we arrived in Johnstown we caught a had two go past at once but never got the minutes and caught Amtrak plus one westbound leaving town, crossing the three trains at one time. The weather was westbound freight. One of the local bridge that was famous during the cloudy and the fog was about 200 feet residents came by and told us more about Johnstown flood. At the Conemaugh above us. A few railfans were there and the area. He was also a model railroader and Black Lick we shot two units behind some general public, but not the crowds with a layout in the basement - small the engine house. This railroad is almost of summer. We left about 1:30 and world. dead as most of the steel mills are shut headed west. As we topped the mountain down. We did see a lot of new hopper On to Torrance and another overpass. on Route 22 we hit warmer weather and cars built by Johnstown America. We This was a great location. The track some sunlight. We went directly for went through Johnstown and headed for curves to the east under the bridge and South Fork, site of the valley where the Summerhill. On the way we spotted a parallels the Conemaugh River. To the flood water came from that destroyed eastbound stack train, however, they had southwest there is CP Pack with the much of Johnstown. This was a great a easier climb than we did and they left us always lit home signals. We caught two location, overhead bridge, former bridge in the dust. trains at this location. locations, nice curve and great back- We had to go north across the river to There is a good overpass at Summerhill. drops. We spend the rest of the daylight Blairsville on the Conemaugh Line and We waited about a half-hour and no hours here, catching about 6 trains. then headed east on Route 22. About 8 trains. On to Cresson and the engine We spent the night in Johnstown and miles we turned south to Robindale and terminal, a stop at Gallitzin and the headed west in the morning. We fol- Bolivar. Robindale in on the north side tunnels and then to the top of Tunnel lowed a westbound out of the city and of the river where the Conemaugh Line Hill. Still no trains. At Tunnel Hill we paced it most of the way to Conpit Junc- 4 The date is July, 1948 and C&EI No. 1011, a 4-6-2, leads the mail train out of Danville station across the Wabash Railroad at North Yard. This photo is part of Ray Curl's collection acquired by the C&EI HS and Rick Schroeder

shortline’s crews. The lines purchased by NAR were offered by BNSF as part of its ongoing asset evaluation program. Including this trans- action, approximately 1,900 miles of track have been sold in 1996 thus far. Via BNSF Home Page tion. We arrived as a westbound TV next time we will probably plan for a train was going through the control point. different time of year with hopefully more The dispatcher ran the train off the Sang sun. At least in the winter the weeds and The I&O Operation Hollow Ext onto No. 2 track. About 15 leaves are gone. Come to the February minutes later we had a eastbound TV meeting and take a look at our trip. of the DT& I: train come off No. 1 track onto the Exten- On December 31, 1996, the Indiana & sion. Finally we had one eastbound come Ohio Railway (1ORY), a subsidiary of off the Conemaugh Line onto No. 1 the RailTex Corp, will take over the track. BNSF Sells lines in operation of six trains per day on the We headed west to Bolivar and the Four States former “DT&I” line from Canadian “freight house curve”. However, our first National Railways. The purchase of the train, thanks to the scanner, was a east- FORT WORTH, Texas, December 17, DT&I track and trackage rights from the bound coal train coming on the 1996-- Burlington Northern Santa Fe former Grand Trunk, now part of Conemaugh Line over the river bridge - Corporation (BNSF) today announced it Canadian National, described in last great shot. We did finally catch one has sold four line segments in Colorado, month’s article, covers the line from RR westbound at Bolivar. Nebraska and Kansas to an operating Junction in Cincinnati to Diann Junction subsidiary of newly-formed, Bedford, in Michigan (where the DT&I crosses On to Torrance to check out the bridge Texas-based North American RailNet, the Ann Arbor RR). The 23 miles be- again. This time the rain had set in and Inc. (NAR). Terms of the sale were not tween Diann and CN’s ex-DT&I Flat by the time we arrived was fairly heavy. disclosed. Rock Yard, outside of Detroit, will be We saw 4 trains along with an Amtrak. covered by trackage rights over CN. In Great place - downpour of rain. On to The 416 miles of railroad sold by BNSF Cincinnati, the 1&O will continue to use Derry and additional business. We shot includes a 225-mile segment from trackage rights on CSX to reach the cabooses and headed west to Latrobe. Sterling, Cob., to Holdrege, Neb.; a 133- Queensgate Yard, where all CSX/ I&O We spent about 2 hours at the overhead mile line from Orleans Junction, Neb., to interchanges will take place, while the bridge and caught a train plus Amtrak. St. Francis, Kan.; a 26-mile line from I&O will use NS trackage rights to reach The sun had come out for some of the Flynn, Neb., to Almena Junction, Kan.; Gest Street where all NS/ I&O inter- time, however, usually not during train and a 30-mile segment from Oronoque changes will occur. time. Junction to Oberlin, Kansas. Nebraska, Kansas & Colorado RaiINet, Inc. For the non-DT&1 trains, McCullough The last shots were from an overhead (NKCR), a shortline railroad created by Yard in Norwood will continue to be bridge east of Greensburg. This was NAR to serve customers on these lines, 1&O’s Cincinnati terminal, with auto tangent track to the east and two trains began operations today. racks still being stored in Underciff Yard. were caught, all deadhead power. The To the three ex-GTW trains each way per NKCR’s cnnections with BNSF will be final train of the day was Amtrak 276. day over the DT&I line, I&O plans to add at Orleans and Holdrege, Neb., and a fourth, a local from Undercliff and We went into Greensburg and headed Sterling, Cob. BNSF will retain pricing McCullough to Flat Rock. The crew south to I-70. The weather did not coop- and routing authority. BNSF coal trains change point for all DT&1 trains will be erate most of the time, however, both of moving to Nebraska Public Power moved from Maitland to Lima. In 1997, us enjoyed action that we did see. The District’s Gerald Gentleman facility will I&O plans to spend between $6 and $8 move over the NKCR, operated by the 5 million on track refurbishment, mostly Philadelphia to Jacksonville, Silver sound to be combined, then downloaded tie replacement, to bring almost all of the Palm, and to Chicago. Three Palm and viewed by a program on your com- line up to 45 MPH by the end of the year. vans per trip carry first-class mail puter known as a “browser”. To cover motive power needs, I&O will (which used to fly) from Pennsylva- lease 33 locomotives, all 4-axle EMD nia and northern New Jersey to The text you see in your browser, what I power, for about six months, while they Tampa, Orlando and Miami. The have written to illustrate a certain aspect acquire additional power of their own. In Chicago route was cut back from St. of the Chapter, is only a small part of all Springfield, the DT&I trains will con- Louis so the Florida runs could of the text contained in a “page”. The rest tinue GTW’s occasional service to Ohio expand quickly. Amtrak is hauling its of the text is contained in “tags”. Tags Warehouse and will enter Springfield new Missouri mail in regular rail cars tell the browser where to place graphics, Yard for interchange with local I&O until more vans arrive. The how to format and place text, and can traffic. The I&O also plans to retain the RoadRailer vans are being hauled on turn text and images into “links” to other freight office in the yard. (from Jim Nobbe the rear of the train while normal pages, images or sounds. These links can and Ron Maifeld, I&O). “headend” cars are being used on the refer to data on our site or on sites hun- dreds of miles away. Via Dayton Ties and Tracks end or behind the motive power. The Sunset Limited, despite its tri- The language used to compose these weekly schedule, will get regular pages is called “Hypertext Markup Lan- Better Head-End head-end revenues for the first time guage” or HTML. The tags I described in January. above “mark up” the text, thereby the Revenues coming for Markup part of the name. You can write Amtrak hopes to partner with freight this code with a simple text editor, pro- Amtrak railroads, taking advantage of their viding you know all the possible tags. marketing skills, to carry high-value Most people don’t, so they use a special Better exploitation of mail and freight on Amtrak trains. Amtrak HTML editor that either partially or com- express opportunities is a big part of President Tom Downs told a Railway pletely automates the tagging process. If Amtrak’s move to improve the Age conference in Washington on you want to see the code behind our economics of long-distance trains. November 8 “The host railroad pages, choose the “View Source” option Amtrak’s gross mail and express furnishes the infrastructure, while the on your browser. I use a popular editor revenues in fiscal 1996 passenger train - which called WebEdit. were $66 million-$2 million operates on fast, reli- over budget, $5 million able schedules - The graphics are a mixed bag. The divid- over 1995, and a 340% handles the high-pri- ing lines, background images, and mail- increase over 1982 (which ority material .. Amtrak box icon on our pages are “clip art” that was $15 million). can be a partner of its I’ve retrieved, for free, from various host railroads, sharing both the sources on the Internet. With most brows- Amtrak has created a large network infrastructure as well the revenue.” ers, you’re one right-click away from of trucking subcontractors to handle This would give freight railroads, who stealing any image you can see on any mail, much as Thruway buses handle control dispatching for most of page you visit. That’s kind of the down- passengers. The first truck deal let Amtrak trains away from the side of this business; there is no way to Amtrak keep Texas-New England Northeast Corridor, another incen- protect copyrights. If you have an image mail when the Texas Eagle was cut tive for keeping Amtrak trains on you want to retain copyright on, don’t from daily to triweekly in late 1993 time. post it on the Web! (trucks handle the St. Louis-Fort Worth segment four days a week). In From NARP News - December 1996 The rest of the graphics, excluding pho- 1995, when bad Empire Builder on- tographs, are made with a combination time performance jeopardized the Web Page Creation of programs including Page Maker, much bigger Seattle-East Coast mail By Doug Nipper Photoshop, Corel Draw and Gif Con- business, Amtrak shifted to trucks struction Set. In some cases, like the west of St. Paul, with stops in Fargo Rick asked if I could describe what it NRHS logo, the image has been scanned and Billings. Thanks to poor reli- takes to put the web pages together. in and then combined with text and ability, the Coast Starlight mail That’s a tall order, but I’ll take a shot at backgrounds in Photoshop. The animated contract was lost in 1994.) it: graphic on the “Slide Show” page was done with three different programs! Initiatives in fiscal 1997 include: The “pages” are nothing but computer text and image files on the Prairienet The photographs that I have included so The Postal Service loves the Unix Web server. The “Web” refers to far are just a start, since I now have a RoadRailer van services from the “World Wide Web”, an aspect of the Polaroid Sprint Scan slide scanner. It Internet that allows text, graphics and can scan 35mm positive or negative trans- 6 parencies up to 2700 dpi (dots per inch). more than a decade. Perhaps the tragic BID RAIL SERVICE? On Monday, Some of the photos were done on a flatbed bus/train collision in Chicago last year January 6, the Illinois House approved a scanner, and some with another slide has made the public aware that they must proposal that would allow the state to scanner, but with this latest tool I can obey the warning device at a grade cross- take bids on passenger train service in produce high-quality images from any ing. Illinois. Under the measure, IDOT would slide or negative. I use Photoshop to be authorized to negotiate with rail-ser- HORSESHOE CURVE During a re- acquire the image from the scanner, then vice providers other than Amtrak to op- cent visit to the famous curve your editor adjust brightness, contrast and sharp- erate state-subsidized routes. The mea- learned that the park service is now ness to get the best quality. I am by no sure went to the Senate on a 111 to 2 vote. charging $3.50 to enter the site. Also, means a graphics artist, but it is amazing the hours are now 10 AM to 4:30 PM in what you can do with these programs. I Three main routes run out of Chicago. the fall months. Hopefully this will just never have enough time! One to Champaign and Carbondale, the change in summer months. Apparently second to Springfield and on to St. Louis It takes about eight solid hours to create the site was losing money and volunteer with the third going to Galesburg, a page from scratch, assuming I’m also help. With the new charging system Macomb and Quincy. The state is want- going to include some custom graphics. comes paid personnel. ing to control the expenses for providing As you get farther along with it, you find rail service to these communities. Two yourself doing new things out of neces- Each person entering has a wristband years the annual cost was about $5 mil- sity to make the page look that way you placed on their wrist and they are given lion and reached $7 million in 1996. want. I just started working heavily with two tokens to ride the incline. No entry This legislation will be used if talks with tables a month ago, and now I find them is allowed without paying - no free walk- Amtrak fails to produce an agreement. indispensable. ing up the stairs. We were disappointed at the closing hours as Bob and I arrived If you’d like to see another animated about 3:45 and had very little time to graphic I created, look at my personal spend on the curve. The next morning Midwest Rail home page. (I’m not sure if the browser we had fog and the 10 am opening did not for AOL can display animated gif im- present a problem except we had time to Initiative ages) It’s located at: http:// kill in town. Had the sun been out we Announced www.soltec.net/~djnipper wanted to be at the curve early to get the Editor: I ask Doug to give us a most shots possible. Wisconsin officials unveiled the Midwest thumbnail sketch of the work involved Rail Initiative on December 3 at The curve is still a great place to watch in producing a Home Page for the Milwaukee's Amtrak station. It is aimed Conrail struggle up the hill. This is the chapter. For those of you that have at creating a Midwestern network of both one location that the general public can seen what he has produced I am sure high-speed and conventional rail service see firsthand how the railroads conquer you are impressed, especially if you radiating from a Chicago hub. the mountains in this country. have checked out the Home Pages of Wisconsin Transportation Secretary major industries. Doug is still OPERATION LIFESAVER has a 1997 Charles Thompson said that the MRI is updating the pages and will have more calendar to celebrate its 25th anniver- being proposed as "the next logical step on the Web soon. Note the article on sary. The historic rail-highway safety to make sure we retain train service in the Page 2 about the additions of photos - posters from the 1920's to 1940's adorn Midwest." He also said the Midwest send some in and become known the calendar. Norfolk Southern granted deserves some to the federal dollars that around the world. WDNL calls OL permission to reproduce the posters. is going for rail studies on the East and getting the morning question right A copy has been sent to the chapter and West Coasts. “Cheap Thrills”. We could call will be placed in the museum. The posting your photo the same. calendar can be obtained for $10 from A study is presently underway on the OL, Inc., 1420 King St, Suite 401, construction of a high-speed rail line to Alexandria, VA 22314. link Chicago to Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis and Minneapolis-St. Paul. A high- Wheel Report The NRHS BULLETIN, Vol. 61, No 5/ speed rail network based in Chicago 6, 1996 has arrived and features articles OPERATION LIFESAVER could create 15,260 construction jobs about Chicago's stations and the fight for WORKING? Through the end of and 2,090 operating jobs according to a the transfer business in the Windy City. November the state has seen a 39% de- University of Illinois study. cline in fatalities and a 22% drop in fatal In addition, the center features the pre- registration for the summer convention Via Wisconsin Chapter Sparks & crashes at rail crossings compared to Cinders 1995. If this continues through the end to be held beginning on Monday , June of the year 1996 will have the lowest 23 and ending on Friday, June 27, 1997. number of deaths at grade crossings in If you plan to attend be sure to send in the registration card. 7