In July of 1997, the annual convention of the Nation Railroad History Society was held in Chicago. One of the events was an excursion train from Chicago to Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was run on the Norfolk Southern (formerly Nickle Plate Road).
The double headed train is crossing Sibly Street in downtown Hammond Indiana. This kind of operation is tricky because the engineer in each locomotive has to manually keep the speeds matched. In modern locomotives, one engineer can control all the locomotives in a train.
Since the time of the photo, only one of these locomotives (765) is still operational and is used around the midwest for excursion trains. I have heard the other (587) is down for restoration.
Lead Engine 587 is owned by
Kentucky Steam Heritage Corp.
Second Engine 765 is owned and operated by
Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society Inc.
This is a photo of the one of the above locomotives shot 23 years later on October 2, 2020. This was shot at an open house hosted by Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society.
There should a "Caution Student Drive" sign on the locomotive since members had the opportunity to sit in the engineer's seat and learn how to drive this train. Actually, once I got over the excitement of being in the engineer's seat, I realized in some ways, it was not much harder than driving a car with "hands only".
Here is a photo of a pair of long retired 6000 series L cars crossing the Chicago River on Wells Street.
In the background is Chicago's the Merchandise Mart. Unknow to most people is there was a train terminal under the building. Before building a new terminal on the west side of the river, Chicago and Northwestern passenger trains arrived and ended under this building.
times.