261 and then some

I am taking the lazy way to blog again by stealing something from Tom's post. He worked security the last couple of days for this enormous steam engine that was in town. I'll let him describe it for you:

261 at Union Station in Chicago

The 261 Northern is enormous and breathtaking, as I discovered today, twice, as the train rumbled by a few feet away while I was keeping the crowds at a safe distance.

My guess is that the 261 is 70 or so feet in length and at least 18 feet tall, longer than my house and about as tall. The drivers, for sure, are taller than I am -- 74" for the drivers, 72" for me. The 261 weighs 260,000 pounds, or 130 tons.

I had no idea.

My grandfather was a railroad steam engineer, who later ran the station in Madelia, Minnesota. He was retired when I knew him, but he lived alongside the tracks, because railroading was his life.

I don't know how he felt about working on such engines. Human beings are dwarfed by locomotives of that size.

Standing two or three feet away from the behemoth, though, I was reminded of another behemoth.

I jumped a C-5A once, when I was in the Army. I remember standing in a huge cavern of an airplane, feeling very, very small.

Experiencing the 261 was like that ...

The 261 is often used in movies these days, and it was filmed near our railway back in the late spring for scenes to be part of an uncoming Johnny Depp flick. While it was visiting the Dells area, I saw it pass our place, just a matter of a few yards from the shop, several times. I am not the train freak that most of the people out there are, but it was an impressive sight nonetheless.