At the time of the Association of Railway Museums' convention in Chicago, a group stopover at Provo enroute to IRM at Union or returning would have been logical. Anyone remember the date or year of that convention? Activities also included thevIC Suburban bfan-trip, shown my Blue Island Branch photos.
IC had a number of wagon-top 4-6-0s including 382, the Casey Jones engine. The engine in the picture's boiler contstruction is different from 382, but the tender is similar. IC's main Chicago roundhouse was at 27th St (now part of the McCormick Place footprint), but the roundhouse in the photos was somewhere else.
It wouldn't surprise me if the photos were taken at C&NW's Proviso roundhouse. At one time the largest roundhouse anywhere, Proviso was cut down from a full circle of 56 stalls to about half that sometime in the 1950s, but many of the now-uncovered tracks remained. The roundhouse remnant is now gone, but the turntable is still there. The UP GP35 (or even SD40 or SD45) makes a lot more sense at Proviso than at 27th St.
The year was the year the Association of Railway Museums had a Chicago convention, and an IC Suburban fan-trip was part of the activities.
I wonder if they were en route to a museum or preservation society somewhere and were staged temporarily at the roundhouse?
It's pretty clear that both photos were taken at the same site. The size of the roundhouse area suggests Chicago or at least a major city. The only real clue in the photo is the Union Pacific locomotive in the roundhouse - most likely a GP35. The lettering on the nose predates UP's use of the shield and the clothes on the photographers are right for either side of 1970. The 4-6-0 has no sign of having been modernized.
UP did have some power pools into Chicago in the late 1960s. The 4-6-0 has slide valves. Boiler shape rules out C&NW, CB&Q and CRI&P (all had UP pools).
Where? when? who?
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