Catching Up With the Nickel Plate

Last night as I was figuring out things to do today, I saw that the Nickel Plate 765 was making a run from somewhere in Ohio to Jonesville, Michigan.  Yesterday, the made a similar run to Hillsdale.  Jonesville and Hillsdale are close enough that they are almost the same town.  Anyway, it has been over a year since I caught the Nickel Plate and I didn't catch the Pere Marquette at all for a while, I decided that's what I wanted to do.

I made it to the spot where they were picking up passengers and waited for about 15 minutes.  I just wish the porta potties weren't where they were.  Oh well.

The single whistle warning people that the train was leaving.  Basically, they came up from Edon, Ohio to here.  That was a three hour trip.

I think there might have been a festival going on, because people were given a couple of hours to enjoy town.

I honestly thought there was a train station here because the road that lead to where I stood was called Reading Road.  Which might be after the railroad.

Maybe there was a train station at one time.  At any rate, the train blew two whistles which meant it was leaving.

I was in the right spot and I think the light was just right for me.

The train was blowing its whistle through here.  Not sure if it was a warning for people watching or just because.

At any rate, it was pretty cool.

It was at a decent speed here.

It passed by.

Apparently, this is a diesel engine that was restored by the same group.  It was also owned by the Nickel Plate at one time.

One more shot.

I was waffling about going to chase it and I decided to do it, since I had no idea when there would be a chance to do that again.

It was at a higher speed here.

I love the clouds made.

It passes by.

The crossbuck.

The other trailing engine.

The Nickel Plate.  No love for the diesels though.

One more shot.

I ended up following it to one more spot.

It was moving much slower here.  It was sort of a railyard.

That gave me a chance for more pictures.

I kind of like this one.

And she just about passes.

I like this one too.

Her wheels.

She passes by.

One more shot.

Some shots of the trailing diesels.

I like this one of the Nickel Plate diesel.

And she moves by.

One more shot before I moved on.

It was pretty fun chasing her but I remembered why I don't like chasing steam engines.  Train nerds are a special bunch in normal times but they get crazy when there is a steam engine involved.  Fortunately, they spread out and there weren't as many at each spot.