| Didnt run into any more TPW trains along US 24. We began to head north on I39 at El Paso, IL. By the time we got to LaSalle/Peru, about 40 mile to the north of where we stayed, no snow on the ground at all. Comes to show you how much impact a storm can make if it is in a direct path. We got to Mendota, IL and stopped at their McDonalds to call Blueridge, our reservation site, and tell them the reason that we were coming a day late. We had to attend a meeting that afternoon where they would convince us to buy a pass to their exclusive vacation getaway packages that afternoon, so there would be no stopping for rail photography. But, as luck would have it, as soon as we started to go inside to pick up some breakfast inside, I heard the horn of an eastbound BNSF train on the BN, so I quickly ran over to the other side of the road and got a photo of it in the BP station parking lot. This train was an eastbound sand train. The first train I have caught in Mendota since our big Out West outing in 2012! After we ate, we continued north. |