My layout isn't in any condition for photos right now, so hopefully prototype images are ok. I had to run some errands around town a couple days ago, so I brought the camera along just in case. Passing through the Hiawatha Avenue switching district, I noticed Minnesota Commercial 68, a B23-7, dropping off a gondola at an industry. After circling the block a few times, I found a place to park, started walking to the closest crossing, and as happens to me so many times in these situations, just as I got there, the lights activated and the loco took off before I could even get a shot. I ran back to my truck and went racing through the neighborhood trying to find a place to get ahead of it. I managed to catch it along the Midtown Greenway just before it went across the Mississippi River.
Not the best day for photography, and I'm trying to hold my camera over the fence after running up a flight of stairs from the street, but I got a few pics. Moments later, the engine approaches the Short Line Bridge over the Mississippi. The bridge is protected by a gate, which I thought would require stopping and having a crew member step down to open. But no, like an automatic door at the grocery store, as the GE rolled up, the gate opened, and continued onto the bridge without even slowing. The gates were added after an arson fire in 2006. The Short Line was originally built in the late 1800s as a more direct routing between St. Paul and Minneapolis by the Milwaukee Road, and is part of the CP today.