I can say firsthand that the Joliet Rocket was a great experience all around. Like I said earlier, I was assigned to NS 26 with my mother and three other car hosts: Tom and Joyce Miller, and Kristi Grubb. We arrived at the LaQuinta Inn on the Friday before the excursion for a car host meeting. It was then that I found out that I was assigned to go to Metra's 47th street yard in the morning. Me and a handful of other car hosts would ride the train with no passengers to Joliet.
The first excursion was great! After getting to know my fellow car hosts on the move, I was ready to roll! I was kind of worried about what I had gotten myself into when I couldn't even see the platform at Joliet due to the herd of people! We had to scrap the photo runby at Tinley 80th because we left Joliet late. But we did a slow speed runby at LaSalle to make up for it. I was on vestibule duty on the three trips I was involved with, making sure everyone had eye protection, and making sure no one got their heads taken off. Everyone obeyed these rules, some more reluctantly than others, but at the end of the day, everyone was safe and had a good time. One other thing that happened was awesome too. I recognized a voice, and then I saw who it was: Nick Ozorak, host of The Roundhouse Podcast. I started chatting with him, and he decided to interview me! The episode was posted yesterday:
The second trip was even better. I serviced the train in Chicago, which is something I never thought I would do. I had actually visited LaSalle Street Station in 2013, and admired an F40ph that was sitting on track 7. I never would have thought that 4 years later, I would be servicing a steam locomotive on that same track. Not as many people came to the vestibule on the second trip, and the group that stayed there for most of the time had a lot of good stories. One man who was a veteran 765 crew member had an awesome story back from the 80's or 90's. I wish I could remember this gentleman's name, but here is his story:
He said they were on a move back to Fort Wayne I think, and they were running through the middle of nowhere in farm land. They tripped a hot box detector which was a common thing with 765 back in the day, and stopped in front of a farm house, in the setting sun. The entire family ran out of the house to come and see the locomotive, and this man was standing in the coal tender chatting with them, explaining what the 765 was and why it was running. Then they whistled off the train and they left.
He also told me that he was involved with the 611 and 1218 for a number of years.
After we unloaded all of the passengers, we departed for 47th Street Yard. I went and helped my friend Martin sweep his car, then we went back two cars to get our friend Michael, and all three of us walked the train to Tioga Pass. It was an amazing experience. We were going 70 mph, in the pouring rain with lightning everywhere, and just a few cars ahead, 765 was whistling away, and the pistons were firing like machine guns.
After we got to 47th, I climbed into the car, laid in the backseat and passed out before the car had even started. Day 1 was excellent!
Pictures coming soon!
