The 765 slips quietly into LaSalle Street Station on the morning before its excursions
The 765’s first excursions of the year have been a challenging and rewarding venture for the Society. Between the four excursions, the locomotive operated over 160 miles and hosted nearly 3,000 passengers in our second year collaborating with Metra.
We’ll have a recap next week and a full report in the next issue of Short Lines, but wanted to share with you an exclusive video from early Saturday morning before the trips began.
Plans had called for us to roll over the 16th Street junction and spot the 765 at LaSalle Street Station to ensure our plan for the next day’s arrival would go off without a hitch.
Originally scheduled much earlier in the evening, the locomotive and a small crew crept into downtown Chicago around 2:00AM – becoming the first steam locomotive since 1973 to enter the station. More than likely it was the 765’s first visit to LaSalle Street since the late 1950s!
Trains Magazine columnist Haley Enoch was on hand to witness the brief trip and wrote about it here:
“On the final approach into downtown Chicago, the skyline buildings split the heavens like electrified geodes. The tracks runs past abandoned wood train stations, cuts through the ruins of old, pre-merger rail yards. Here, the stillness is more enduring than the nocturnal torpor fallen over the rest of the route. We are the closest thing to a manifested ghost that this division has ever seen“
