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Southern Railway 401 Charter Train at Monticello Railway Museum Part 3



by Chris Guenzler







Photo runby fourteen.





One of the antique cars.









Photo runby fifteen.





The photo line made by most of the participants.









Photo runby sixteen.





Reverse move fourteen.





The photo line.





Photo runby seventeen. Back on the train we went and reversed to Cemetery Road for our next series of photo runbys.







The antique cars getting into postion.





Reverse move fifteen.









Photo runby eighteen at Cemetery Road.









Photo runby nineteen.





The former flagstop of Dighton, named for the farming family that once upon the time was the closest family to this stop. Dighton was unusual in that it was one of the only stations of its kind on the ITC that had a covered platform. When the ITC ended operations on this line in the 1950's, the station was removed and Dighton faded away into memory. The portion of the ITC from Dighton into Downtown Monticello was turned into a rail trail and along with it, the concrete pad that once was home to a station was brought back into the public eye. A local Boy Scout project saw the Dighton name return to the former ITC for the first time in half a century in the early 2000's, with the erection of a pole, plaque and replica wooden station sign placed at the site.





The antique cars getting into postion.







Photo runby eighteen.





Reverse move sixteen.









Photo runby nineteen. We all reboarded and returned to the museum where the steam engine was watered and greased and we had a lunch break. I went with two of my rare mileage friends to Hardee's.





Illinois Central GP11 8733, built by General Motors Electro-Motive Diesel Division in 1958 as Illinois Central 9386, and was rebuilt at the Paducah Shops in Kentucky in 1980 as a GP11. The locomotive was donated by Canadian National-Illinois Central in 2001. This unit has been restored to operational condition.





Illinois Central 8733 was switching the museum tracks during our lunch break.









Illinois Central 8733 and train. Our train returned from watering, we reboarded and went west down the tracks and unloaded. We followed a path that had been mown which took us to below the Camp Creek Trestle, our next photo runby location.







Photo runby twenty.





Reverse move seventeen.











Photo runby twenty-one. Our fantastic actors and actress got into a picnic pose for a photo runby on the south side of the bridge.





Reverse move eighteen.









Photo runby twenty-two.







Reverse move nineteen.







Photo runby twenty-three. Since we used 500 gallons of water during the first two runbys, the choice was made return the train to the museum and water it from a fire hydrant. One rider and I decided to return to the train while that was occuring. On the way there, the engine had to be cut off from the train and pulled to the fire hydrant to fill the tender all the way. Back on the train, good conversations were had until we departed, picked up the rest of the passengers,then added the water treatment before we left for our next photo runby location at the Monticello Wabash station.



Click here for the last part of this story!