60 CLASSIC TRAINS FALL 2019
and 311 and 310, which had been inside,
again ready to take train 1 west.
Train 2 was reported out of Wisconsin
Rapids with C424 312 and FA1 502 in
charge. Since it was nearing sunset, this
posed a problem. We could stick around
Green Bay and get train 1 leaving in full
sunlight, but we’d already photographed
its engines. Or, we could go west and try
to intercept train 2, risking that we’d get
neither in any light. “This calls for an eth-
ical decision,” I’m reported to have said,
so we flipped a coin and headed west.
The dispatcher — whose Norwood office
was then in a truckless coach body —
told us the meet would be at Black Creek,
23 miles out, or New London (35 miles).
We drove straight to New London,
where the operator told us the meet
would occur. Luckily for us, the trains
met in the last gasp of sufficient light for
our Kodachrome II film. Back at Nor-
wood, we made some night photos of en-
gines 312 and 502, hedging that this
would be our last crack at a GB&W FA.
(The other was at Wisconsin Rapids as a
protection unit.) We hoped that No. 309,
out west on the local, would show up, but
gave up on that at 1:30 a.m.
Meantime, we’d checked the north-
bound Copper Country at MILW’s Oak-
land Avenue yard office, the replacement
for a downtown depot on a spur on the
Fox River’s east bank. It was scheduled
for a 25-minute Green Bay stop spanning
midnight; we wanted to see it because
we’d heard cars of an Illini Railroad Club
excursion to the U.P. were on the rear.
They inflated the consist by one diesel, toan FP7/E9B/FP7 trio, and five cars: a Soo
coach, two PRR sleepers, and two private
cars: heavyweight sleeper Joaquin Miller
and the club’s Chief Illini (ex-Pullman In-
glehome, a heavyweight car with a rear
platform). The Flexi-Van container flat
and some storage mail cars were set out.
Green Bay’s National Railroad Muse-
um, incidentally, was not ignored. We’d
stopped by in the morning (admission 50
cents). Locomotives displayed included
UP Big Boy 4017; LS&I 2-8-0 24; Missabe
2-10-2 506; C&O 2-8-4 2736, Milwaukee
4-8-4 261; Soo 4-6-2 2718; U.S. Army
2-8-0 101; Santa Fe 2-10-4 5017; Cassville
& Exeter center-cab Plymouth 2001; a
Wisconsin Public Service Plymouth die-
sel; Sumter & Choctaw 2-8-2 102 from
South Carolina; British Railways stream-
lined 4-6-2 60008 Dwight D. Eisenhower;
a Menominee Sugar Co. 0-4-0T; and an-
other 0-4-0T that pulled a tourist train
around the grounds’ loop of track. Also
of interest was an LS&I combine in un-
disturbed condition from when it ran on
the Gwinn–Munising mixed. Other items
included an ACL diner, PRR standard
sleeper, GB&W baggage car, and Soo
steam wrecker W-l.SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5
Starting again with the Peninsula 400,
on our odyssey’s last full day, we chose
the Lake Shore Division’s Fox River
bridge, site of some C&NW publicity
photos, on which the entire 11-car train,
and its F7/E8 power, easily fit. At the
roundhouse, F7s 4097A and 4097BGB&W’s road trains 1 and 2 meet at New
London just at dusk on September 4 in the
last light acceptable for Kodachrome II.
East of Norwood Yard on the Fox River’s west bank, Green Bay & Western RS2 301, built in
1950, passes the road’s general office, which burned down in February 1977.A Milwaukee Fairbanks-Morse C-Liner trio greets the author at the Green Bay shop on the
morning of September 4. The road had six such three-unit FM sets.