Action-Packed Railfanning, Metra Milwaukee District West Line - Franklin Park, IL - 7/25/2025

Описание: Back on July 25th, after much talking and planning, I treated my friend Galilee, a younger railfan who goes to my church, to an afternoon of train action at Franklin Park. This was his very first time at Franklin Park and regrettably, mine as well. Though I regularly railfan one or two stations west of here at Bensenville, and I've also been several stations east to Galewood, this was a just a bit out of my comfort zone. The drive here and back stunk (mainly by North Avenue at 290/294 where there is a big construction project going on). We had a couple of hours here before I had to meet another friend for dinner in the evening.

Although I never got to experience the days when Metra's F40Cs would scream through here and blaring P5 horns would regularly fill the town, this was still a pretty fun session. These days, the Milwaukee West is mostly dominated by Metra's new SD70MACHs. The F40PHs are completely gone from the MD lines and have been moved to the Union Pacific. Even the MP36 locomotives, which directly replaced the F40Cs in the mid 2000's, are slowly moving south toward the Rock Island and Heritage Corridors (maybe even the Southwest Service?) while Metra continues to receive more SD70s and slowly retire more of the aging un-rebuilt F40PH-2s on the UP lines. With the recent sudden retirement and sale of F40s 154, 158, 159, and 161 and F40s 100 and 184 being relocated to the UP from the Rock Island, it's only a matter of time before possibly all the MP36s disappear from the MD. Franklin Park's residents also got fed up with the excessive train horns, and as of a couple of years ago, Franklin Park is now a quiet zone (for the most part).

During this trip, we caught some great SD70 action with locomotives 506, 507, 513, 517, 518, 519, and the most recent arrival, 523. We also caught MP36 number 426, which honestly amazed me. I got to hear a couple of good blasts from 506's K5LLA, which was super cool. The first CPKC freight that we caught was interesting. The train slowly made its way past us and into the yard where it came to a stop, blocking all the crossings in town for probably about half an hour and halting/delaying several commuter trains. According to what they the engineer said on the radio, they had "missed a switch." After a long time of waiting, he received clearance from the dispatcher to make a reverse move east so the issue could be corrected and then continue west. It was very interesting to watch and hear all of this go down while commuters and drivers became frustrated with the blocked railroad crossings.

I apologize for the couple of crappy and rushed shots. Between trying to move the tripod around, forgetting to hit record a couple of times, talking to Galilee, and answering questions by a couple of very sweet Indian or Pakistani women, I screwed up a couple of shots. Hope everyone enjoys nonetheless!

Everything I used for this video:

Panasonic HC-X920 camcorder
3Pod V3AH tripod
Movavi Video Editor Plus 2020
Kenwood NEXEDGE NX-210 two-way radio