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A Passion for Steam

Part Two

The Beginning of the End

In 1968, Robert McMillan left the Chicago & Western Indiana. The new owners of the C&WI wanted to demolish the 47th Street Roundhouse due to the building falling into disrepair, so with no warning, on February 27, 1969, Dick Jensen received a notice that he had 30 days to vacate the property. Negotiations with the C&WI extended the deadline to June 1. Panicking, the Midwest Steam Railfan’s Association quickly removed everything they could from the roundhouse. Lots of the little things were loaded into Dick’s bread delivery truck and stored at his home in Forest Park, Illinois.

With no place to relocate the two disassembled CB&Q locomotives to, Dick and his crew desperately searched for a new storage site, even if it was temporary. At one point, there were ongoing discussions of bringing the 4963 and 5632 to the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois, but for reasons unknown, the plan never materialized, and the two engines remained in the roundhouse. (At the time, the 5629 was being stored in Detroit for excursion use there and besides some spare parts that Dick had kept in the roundhouse, it was uninvolved with this.)

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The Quiet Easter

When you live up on a hill above the river and the city stretches out below, there’s a few sounds you get used to, like auto noise from the freeway, the scream of late night motorcycle races, planes, helicopters, trains and on Sunday mornings, the sound of church bells. There are at least half a dozen churches within hearing distance and all ring their bells on the sabbath day. Easter in 2020, of course, was very different what with most of them closed due to “the Covid” as it is known around here. No bells were heard, and an eerie silence pervaded.

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Editor’s Notebook

“Train’s gone, son.”

Larry McMurtry, the American author who wrote so eloquently about the changing West, died on March 25, 2021, at the age of eighty-four. He is perhaps best known for the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Lonesome Dove, but he published both fiction and non-fiction over a long and prolific career. From his first novel, Horseman Pass By, here is a beautiful and evocative description of a warm evening on a Texas ranch, sitting on the porch watching the train go by as the day fades.

“Granddad was an old man then, and he worked hard days. By eight or eight-fifteen he was tired of sitting up. Around that time the nightly Zephyr flew by, blowing its loud whistle to warn the station men in Thalia. The noise cut across the dark prairie like the whistling train itself. I could see the hundred lighted windows of the passenger cars, and I wondered where in the world the people behind them were going night after night. To me it was exciting to think about a train. But the Zephyr blowing by seemed to make Granddad tireder; it seemed to make him sad. He told me one time that it reminded him of nights on roundup, long years ago. On quiet nights he and the other cowboys would sit around the fires, telling stories or drawing brands in the dirt. Some nights they would camp close to a railroad track, and a train would go by and blow its whistle at the fires. Sometimes it scared the cattle, and sometimes it didn’t, but it always took the spirit out of the cowboys’ talk; made them lonesomer than they could say. It made them think about womenfolk and fun and city lights till they could barely stand it. And long years after, when the last train would go by, Granddad got restless. He would stretch, and push his old rope-bottom chair up against the house. ‘Train’s gone, son,’ he said to me. ‘It’s bedtime.‘”

Larry McMurtry – 1936 -2021

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Dark Summer

Twilight is fading to night, but the familiar dance of picking up and setting out cars continues at Ruleton, Kansas, on the Kyle Railroad. June 5, 2020.

Beyond the big-city bubble of Denver, where people wear masks to walk their dogs, the rural plains seem nonplussed by this new COVID-19 reality. Stopping for gas during a road trip through Kansas in June, I ran through a mental checklist of safety precautions as if refueling a spaceship, and in a way, I was. My Honda capsule allowed me to travel through the landscape, remaining socially distant, as those around me carried on with little notice.

While I was traveling, Amtrak announced it would reduce long-distance route service from a daily schedule to every other day to cut costs during the pandemic—a serious reduction for places with already limited options. Most passenger trains cross the plains nocturnally, quietly witnessed by only the train crew, the hardy passenger, and the occasional insomniac.

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Hinsdale Station

One can stand trackside and see the headlights of three or more approaching trains in the distance . . .

Chicago’s Metra commuter system is one of the busiest in the U.S., with lines emanating from downtown in all directions to the suburbs.  Trains originate from four stations: Union, LaSalle Street, Millennium (near the site of the Illinois Central Railroad’s Central Station) and the Ogilvie Transportation Center (a skyscraper built on the site of Chicago & North Western’s Northwestern Station).  Every weekday morning trains pour into the downtown area, packed with commuters headed to work in the city.  The late afternoon hours find the reverse as commuters head for home.

Of the many routes operated by the system, the former Chicago, Burlington & Quincy line to Aurora is the busiest.  During the height of the commuter rush, one can stand trackside and see the headlights of three or more approaching trains in the distance on the triple track mainline.  The northern-most track finds trains making local stops, while express trains take the middle track and a combination of empty deadhead moves and eastbound commuter trains take the southernmost track.

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A Passion for Steam

“Items in the news remind us that a new generation has arisen that knows nothing of the intricacies of the three pedals of the old ‘Model T’ steerage or the most palatial suite of a modern luxury ocean liner or the cinders, soot, and smoke of the old coal burning steam locomotive. But those who do find various modes of expression for their particular sentimental attachment.” – Roy L. Peterson, Belvidere Daily Republican, September 25, 1967

There are around one thousand preserved steam locomotives in the United States today. Most are confined to parks or museums. The lucky few have been restored to operation and pull special trips several times per year, bringing the lucky passengers on a trip back in time. However, even after being preserved, some locomotives were still ultimately lost to the cutting torch. Locomotives that met such fate that come to mind include Texas & Pacific No. 638, Southern Pacific No. 743, and of course, the Chicago Burlington & Quincy No. 5632 and Grand Trunk Western No. 5629. This is the story of the latter two, the locomotives that they were preserved with, and the man behind it all—Dick Jensen, a pioneer in the effort to preserve steam locomotives.

Part I: A Passion For Steam

By 1924, the Grand Trunk Western Railway needed a steam locomotive that could haul passengers and do it fast. The answer was the K4 series of 4-6-2 Pacific type locomotives, the first of which (K4A) were erected at the American Locomotive Company’s shops in Schenectady, New York in January and February of 1924. (After the first order, the GTW would turn to Baldwin for future K4s). The K4As were equipped with 73-inch drivers and produced 41,000 pounds of tractive effort. Designed to pull commuter trains in Michigan, the engines could easily reach 100 miles an hour with a full passenger train (in the later years of their service, they also pulled freight trains).

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