tankist
Active Member
I commute to DT chicago every day and i find Metra absolutely awesome - extra 50 minutes of sleep a day each way. when i not asleep i like watching the approach to union station (remember, i have a thing about double slip switches and there is meshes of'em there 
) . but even before commuting to DT, as afield technitian i traveled to most industrial areas in 1.5 hour radius and being hobby photographer i used to snap pics here and there. it is only now occurred to me that what i was doing was perhaps railfanning, and reading about lingo (specifically term "foamer" ) and realted i guess now i understand the weird looks that different crews were giving me back then.
so, question is to Chicago'ans, or perhaps not only to Chicagoans as others might know stuff about US biggest rail hub - is there good resource explaining what yards and rails belong to which railroad? while searching i found railfan.chicago site, lots of photo repositories of specific areas (awesome), couple articles in wiki but not really a comprehensive guide about the entire thing. anyone knows perhaps?
so not to keep this post dry here are couple pics i snapped time ago:
"well broken-in" switcher on that huge yard just south of o'hare airport.
Somwhere in prospect heights/Des Plaines
the bucket
PS, was thinking to take a day off and explore other lines of metra system (i have monthly pass anyways ), snapping pics of nearby areas to gather ideas of what to do to the layout at home.
) . but even before commuting to DT, as afield technitian i traveled to most industrial areas in 1.5 hour radius and being hobby photographer i used to snap pics here and there. it is only now occurred to me that what i was doing was perhaps railfanning, and reading about lingo (specifically term "foamer" ) and realted i guess now i understand the weird looks that different crews were giving me back then.so, question is to Chicago'ans, or perhaps not only to Chicagoans as others might know stuff about US biggest rail hub - is there good resource explaining what yards and rails belong to which railroad? while searching i found railfan.chicago site, lots of photo repositories of specific areas (awesome), couple articles in wiki but not really a comprehensive guide about the entire thing. anyone knows perhaps?
so not to keep this post dry here are couple pics i snapped time ago:
"well broken-in" switcher on that huge yard just south of o'hare airport.
Somwhere in prospect heights/Des Plaines
the bucket
PS, was thinking to take a day off and explore other lines of metra system (i have monthly pass anyways
), snapping pics of nearby areas to gather ideas of what to do to the layout at home.
