Student Engineer Trip on CNW 8522 - Train SPMTA

Описание: In December 1994 I was selected as a candidate for locomotive engineer class for the Chicago & Northwestern Railway in West Chicago, Illinois. I had already been working as a conductor on the Illinois division between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa, so this would be a promotion on the same territory.

OJT initially consisted of running switch engines and locals in some of the various yards that were part of our division, and then eventually, I went to the East - West mainline, running everything from coal trains to intermodel trains, and everything else in between.

This video takes place in April 1995, about a month before I received my check ride and my official promotion as a locomotive engineer in May 1995. I was working on what we called the south end, which was a line that ran from the mainline at Nelson, Illinois down to Madison, Illinois, which was across the river from East St. Louis. South Pekin, Illinois was the crew base for this line, and in this video, I was assigned to train SPMTA, which originated in South Pekin, and ran to Marshalltown, Iowa. Our portion of the run was between South Pekin, Illinois and Clinton, Iowa. My crew consisted of conductor, Mark Theobald, and engineer Gary Staker.

Unfortunately, my battery died after we made it to the mainline at Nelson, Illinois on the trip up to Clinton. On the return trip on train MTSPA, we went to work at night, so I did my best to highlight the trip, despite the darkness before arriving back into South Pekin on the morning of day number three of this round-trip.