T.G.'s Photography Blog

Back in 2008, I caught Union Pacific (UP) 6720 and UP 6726, both ex-Chicago and Northwestern (CNW) locomotives, leading a loaded coal train south through Valley Junction in East St. Louis, Illinois . The train was making its way toward UP's Chester Subdivision, which starts on the southern edge of the junction . At this point the majority of the train is still coming down off of the east approach from the MacArthur Bridge . The MacArthur Bridge crosses the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois.  The junction/interlocking is controlled by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (TRRA). UP 6720 and UP 6726 lead a loaded coal train at Valley Junction. These locomotives are painted in CNW's Operation Lifesaver (OL) paint scheme. While the two locomotives still retained their CNW OL paint scheme, they had been patched as UP locomotives. You can see under the cab's side windows the new UP markings and locomotive numbers. A patched loc...

With snow on the ground, BNSF 6385 (still in Burlington Northern Cascade Green), BNSF 518, BNSF 101 (still in the Warbonnet scheme, but re-lettered to BNSF), & FURX 1161 roll east on BNSF's Hannibal Subdivision, at South Kingshighway Blvd., in St. Louis, Missouri. BNSF 6385 leads a quartet of locomotives east on the Hannibal Subdivision.  The train is about two miles to the east of BNSF's Lindenwood Yard, where it departed from, and is heading toward Grand Avenue Interlocking . Grand Avenue Interlocking is about two miles further east of this location. Lines from BNSF, Union Pacific, and the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis all meet there. At Grand Avenue Interlocking the train will get onto TRRA's Merchants Subdivision for a roughly five-mile run, until it reaches North market Interlocking in North St. Louis , where the train will get back onto BNSF's Hannibal Subdivision.  BNSF 6385 is an EMD built SD40-2 . It was built for the Burlington Northern Rai...

BNSF 8724 - crossing Hall Street toward Luther Yard On a few days in June 2007, I headed up to North St. Louis to see if there was any railroading action going on around Norfolk Southern's Luther Yard. On one of those days I was driving north on Hall Street when I saw the RR crossing lights start to flash for the transfer track between the BNSF's North St. Louis Yard and Norfolk Southern's Luther Yard. I pulled the car over quickly to the side of the road and was able to grab a couple of photographs as BNSF 8724 crossed Hall Street leading a transfer train to Luther Yard. This is one of the few images I have ever gotten of a train using this transfer track. The track is not a long one, as the two yards are only about three tenths of a mile (approximately half a kilometer) apart. At Luther Yard Next I headed over to Carrie Avenue on the south end of Norfolk Southern's Luther Yard in North St. Louis. Not much was going on at the time but I was able to captu...

UP 8214 and SP 338 - Fountain, IL Union Pacific 8214 and Southern Pacific 338 are leading an empty coal train north across Fountain Creek, at Fountain, IL., on Union Pacific's Chester Subdivision. At the time of this photograph SP 338 was still in its Southern Pacific paint scheme, and was un-patched , even though the locomotive was owned by Union Pacific. When a locomotive is refereed to as being patched, it means the locomotive still retains the predecessor railroad's paint scheme, but its numbering has been changed by the railroad that currently owns it.  The train was on its way back to a mine in the Powder River Coal Basin , located in the Western United States. The train would travel north from here to St. Louis, then across Missouri to Kansas City. Then from Kansas City, the train would most likely travel to North Platte, NE, and then on toward a coal mine in Wyoming. Photo taken: June 19, 2004, at Fountain, Illinois.

LMX 8598, LMX 8532 and BN 5492 - McCook, NE Here we see Burlington Northern 5492, a GE built B30-7, as the third unit on a west bound train on Burlington Northern's Hastings Subdivision. The first two locomotives are lease units, LMX 8598 and LMX 8532, and both units are GE built B39-8E models. The train was passing by the McCook Amtrak station/Burlington Northern office building. At the time there was a pedestrian bridge over the tracks, which is where I took this image from. Today, looking on Google Maps, it looks like the bridge is gone. Today, this railroad line is owned by the BNSF Railway, due to the merger of the Burlington Northern Railroad and the Santa Fe Railway that was started in September 1995, and was officially completed in December 1996. This photograph is an oldie (at least for me) but a goodie in my opinion. The photograph isn't the greatest from a composition or technical standpoint, but the photograph's content is something that will not be ...

NS 6783 (ex-Conrail) nearing Hole in the Wall on the Springfield Subdivision . Here, Norfolk Southern (NS) 6783, a former Conrail (external link) locomotive, leads a manifest freight train south on the joint trackage next to the north approach. The train will take the switch just ahead of it, go to its left, and pass through Hole in the Wall. Hole in the Wall is the name given to a pass through on the joint Union Pacific (UP) and Kansas City Southern (KCS) trackage in East St. Louis that passes under the TRRA's north approach to the MacArthur Bridge. The UP and KCS share trackage between Valley Junction , located in East St. Louis, Illinois, and Godfrey, Illinois, to the north of here. The grain cars to the left of the photograph are on a track that serves a facility along the East St. Louis riverfront. NS 6783 (ex-Conrail) is exiting Hole in the Wall. NS 6783 is now coming out from under the north approach to the MacArthur Bridge, through "Hole In The Wa...

BNSF 5722 and BNSF 637 - Kansas City, MO BNSF 5722 (on the point) and BNSF 637 (trailing) are leading an empty coal train north through the West Bottoms of Kansas City . The train was heading toward the Goose Neck , and after going through the Goose Neck would cross over the Missouri River on the Hannibal Bridge into North Kansas City, Missouri. BNSF 637 was a former Santa Fe locomotive, which at the time of this photograph, was still painted in the famous Santa Fe Warbonnet paint scheme. Photo taken: September 26, 2005, at Kansas City, Missouri.

Chicago and Northwestern 8507 (a GE C40-8) is on the point of a Union Pacific train rolling south at mile post 10 on the UP's Chester Subdivision. I am actually not sure which of the locomotives is spewing the smoke out but whichever one it is, it is doing a great job. This image was scanned from a Kodak Ektachrome slide on a Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED film scanner. I scanned the image as a 16 bit NEF file (Nikon RAW file) and then used Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop to post process the image. May 1997. Columbia, Illinois. Photo © Tom Gatermann. All rights reserved.

BNSF 643, BNSF 6943, and WC 3026 - Hannibal Subdivision BNSF 643, BNSF 6943, and Wisconsin Central 3026 lead a BNSF manifest freight train east near Sublette Avenue. Painted in a "map" scheme, WC 3026 is WC's 10th anniversary unit that also celebrated Wisconsin's sesquicentennial anniversary of statehood. BNSF 643 is a former Santa Fe locomotive that is still painted in Santa Fe's Warbonne t paint scheme. Photo take: December 24, 2006, at St. Louis, Missouri.

As I was digging through my old film archives I came across this shot from the early 1990s. Here the locomotives of two fallen flags lead a manifest freight west on the Union Pacific's Sedalia Subdivision (now named the Jefferson City Subdivision) at Knox Avenue in St. Louis, MO. On the point is St. Louis and Southwestern (Cotton Belt) 7280. I cannot make out the second unit's number, but the locomotive is a Rio Grande unit. The third unit I believe was a lease unit. Originally, the Sedalia Subdivision ran from Gratiot Tower (now called Gratiot Interlocking) in St. Louis, MO. to Rock Creek Junction, in Kansas City, MO. At some point after 1995, the subdivision was split up, and the eastern portion of the subdivision from Jefferson City to St. Louis was renamed the Jefferson City Subdivision. I'm not sure when the name change occurred, but a Union Pacific timetable I have from 1995, still lists the portion of the subdivision from Jefferson City to St. Louis as being p...

May 26, 2005. Clarksville, MO. BNSF 9637 sits on the Hannibal Sub with an empty coal train, while waiting for rail traffic ahead to clear. There were about three or four trains parked back-to-back on the main line, all waiting to go north. Here's a link to another one of the trains that day that was waiting to head north . BNSF 9637, at this time, was still painted in Burlington Northern's executive paint scheme. Photo © Tom Gatermann

BNSF 9683 (an EMD SD70MAC) is serving as the distributed power unit (DPU) on a northbound empty coal drag. Rail traffic this day on BNSF's Hannibal Subdivision was busy, and there were a number of trains, including this one, waiting for traffic to clear. Here is a link to another photograph of one of the trains that was waiting to proceed north. BNSF 9683, at this time, was still painted in Burlington Northern's executive paint scheme. May 26, 2005. Clarksville, MO. Photo © Tom Gatermann.

A string of three ex-Burlington Northern locomotives , BNSF 3114, BNSF 3115, and BNSF 6368, sit in BNSF's Argentine Yard. This view is from the South 42nd Street overpass. This is not the greatest of images, but the likelihood of seeing three green ex-Burlington Northern locomotives together even in 2004, was getting pretty rare. These locomotives are called patched locomotives, meaning that while they retain the paint scheme of the former railroad, they have been re-lettered, and sometimes re-numbered, with the new owning railroads identifying marks.  BNSF's Argentine Yard is a former Santa Fe Railroad yard, located in Kansas City, KS. The yard is along the BNSF Transcon Route between Chicago, IL. and Los Angeles, CA. The approximate length of the main area of the yard is just about 3.5 miles long, calculated by taking a measurement on Google Maps. Photo taken: June 16, 2004. Kansas City, Kansas.

An old Grand Trunk Western Railroad sign, and an Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway sign at Griffith Junction. Both of these railroads are gone, and both are now owned by Canadian National. Photo taken: August 14, 2008, at Griffith, Indiana.

August 23, 2005. East of Wright, Wyoming. A BNSF work train is seen here on BNSF's Orin Subdivision, near Wyoming Highway 450. BNSF 6840 and BNSF 6958 are on the point of this ballast train, which is waiting to proceed south. At this time there was a lot of track work occuring adding a third and fourth mainline to much of the Orin Subdivision. This portion of the line was triple tracked at this time. Photo © Tom Gatermann

August 23, 2005. Gillette, Wyoming. Burlington Northern (BN) 5802 (GE U30C) sits on display at Gillette Energy Park. This locomotive is of the type that was used by BN to haul long coal trains from the Power River Coal Basin. The park has an assortment of mining equipment on display that was used in the area. The locomotive was originally numbered as BN 5302, and was built in 1972, by General Electric. Photo © Tom Gatermann

August 23, 2005. Gillette, Wyoming. BNSF 9221, a former Burlington Northern engine, leads a west bound train on BNSF's Black Hills Subdivision. In a few miles the train will leave the Black Hills Subdivision and roll onto the BNSF's Big Horn Subdivision. The train to the right was an empty coal train that was heading back for another load of coal in the Powder River Coal Basin (PRCB), via Donkey Creek Junction, which is a few miles east of town. Photo © Tom Gatermann

November 1, 2006. East St. Louis, Illinois. Union Pacific 6809 and Union Pacific 6703 lead an empty coal train west on the eastern approach of the MacArthur Bridge. The train is passing by Jackie Joyner Park. Union Pacific 6703 is ex-Chicago & Northwestern Railroad (C&NW) 8801, and was one of many locomotives that C&NW painted with the "Operation Lifesaver" logotype on the sides. Photo © Tom Gatermann.

March 5, 2007. St. Louis, Missouri. BNSF 4416 leads a train south on the TRRA's Merchants Subdivision, in front of the old St. Louis Southwestern Railway (Cotton Belt) freight depot that is just north of Laclede's Landing. Photo © Tom Gatermann.

October 18, 2008. Rock Island, Illinois. An old Rock Island RR bridge crossing over an entrance to Rock Island Arsenal. The bridge is now part of the Iowa Interstate Railroad. Photo © Tom Gatermann.