Glen Ellyn, IL

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Since I was at Willowbrook Wildlife Center, I decided to keep going north and see what I could spot on the old Chicago & North Western Railroad (CNW) tracks even though it was 4:30pm and approaching rush hour. When my kids were still home, I would visit Glen Ellyn about every Fall because they played volleyball. For the first time in my life, I was able to find a parking spot in front of the Glenbard West High School. It helps to visit before school has started.

Their nickname is The Hilltoppers. Which struck me as a strange nickname for a HS until I saw where it was built---on top of a big hill.

20140818

The above view was from the middle of the block. Below is from the corner that is closer to downtown.

From where I was standing, I turned from the above shot towards the NNE to the below shot towards the Southwest. The parked cars in the distance are at the east side of downtown and just north of the CNW tracks. The brick building on the left beyond the trees would be on the other side of the tracks.

The reason I took this photo is that it struck me as strange that the hill the highschool is on is the only hill in the area. The building to the right is their gym. I walked towards town. Just this side of those cars is a crossing that is at the end of the platforms for the train station. And you can see there is a parking lot on the south side of the tracks as well.

I've noticed that the time stamps on the pictures are about an hour earlier than they should be. I went upstairs and took a test picture. But it was only 4 minutes off. I don't understand what has happened. But the important thing is the relative time, so I'm going to use the time stamp on the photos. I arrived in town at 15:47. The first train was a outbound commuter at 15:54.

20140818 0661 15:54

Note that the UP has retained the CNW convention of running left-handed. I walked past the clump of trees on the left to get to the downtown. This shot is towards ENE.

I found a better "town name" shot later, but I include this shot because the "From Chicago" arrow is wrong! I'm taking this picture on the south platform looking South. So it is pointing West. Chicago is east of Glyn Ellyn. And this is an error in a station where the trains run left-handed so a customer is going to be confused and paying attention to the signs. I'm afraid the error is going to worsen the confusion, not fix it.

The tracks curve after they leave the station, so you can get some different shots of trains here.

15:56

I need to research when the depot was built. Metra's modern depots look like they kicked a container off a train and punched some windows into it. This is certainly much more stylish than that. But it doesn't look original either.











I went back to the crossing to get to the north side of the tracks to take an overview picture with the clock tower I had been seeing. It is just to the right of the trees on the left.

And then I walked over to get pictures of the building that has that clock.
 

It is the Civic Center, Police Depot and whatever words are probably behind the left streetlight.

It occurred to me that I can use the clock tower picture to calibrate the camera's time stamp error. But then I discovered that something changed the Modified property of the file. I found a file that wasn't modified and verified that the times are indeed off by an hour and 4 minutes. I need to check for Daylight savings time issues.

And as I left town the eighth train, an outbound commuter express, went through town in a little over an hour, including a couple of freights---covered grain and containers+TOFC unit trains.