“We were able to make several photo stops and runbys along the way and still arrive in St. Joseph on time...”
It was not an easy trip to take part in. Beginning two days before, heavy snow began to fall across the upper Midwest. And then the winds came in. Out on the west end of Illinois Central’s line to Sioux City, the Hawkeye had de- railed by bucking snowdrifts. Passen- gers destined for Cedar Rapids on the Chicago & North Western rode the cab of a switch engine to get from the south edge of the city (where the depot was lo- cated) to the downtown area. The Mil- waukee Road actually lost an 80 car freight train near Calmar, Iowa, until the crew could make their way to a phone. Trains that ran at all were running eight hours late. Highway travel was out of the question, but the Burlington was still running in and out of Creston. For those of us from northeast Iowa, the answer was the joint Union Pacific-
RIGHT: Car No. 6000, the Silver Pendulum, trails a CB&Q doodlebug. Silver Pendulum was built in January 1942 by Pacific Railway Equip- ment Co., one of three such cars, as a 60-seat coach.
BELOW: Four trains congregate at St. Joseph, Mo., including No. 30 (Creston-St. Joseph motor), No. 4 (St. Joseph to Brookfield con- nection of the Kansas City Zephyr), No. 41 (the Pioneer Zephyr to Lincoln, Neb., via Wymore) and No. 27 ( one of three daily trains between Kansas City and Omaha).
Milwaukee Road train No. 103, the City of Los Angeles/San Francisco from Marion, Iowa, to Omaha, and then the Burlington’s section of the California Zephyr east to Creston. Although plows were out ahead of the trains that night, we could still feel the train hit the hard drifts as cuts filled in ahead of us. In anticipation of a heavier than nor-
mal passenger load, the “Q” provided us with an unpowered trailer in addi- tion to the normal motor car. They could have saved themselves the trou- ble. Eighteen railfan braved the weath-
er to make the trip. Since the car was not powered, it was outfitted with kerosene lamps.
With an on time departure from Cre- ston, we were able to make several pho- to stops and runbys along the way and still arrive in St. Joseph on time at 10:30 a.m. The station was alive with activity as four trains congregated at St. Joseph between 10:30 and 11:10, allow- ing train-to-train connection to nearly all of the Burlington routes in the area. During the seven hour layover before the Creston motor car went back north,
40 JUNE 2013 •
RAILFAN.COM
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