HINTS OF ADVANCED AGE.

When I hired out at Northern Illinois University, the Chicago and North Western's Bi-Level Commuter Streamliners were still running in their English Stagecoach Yellow and Forest Green, even though the trains were being subsidized by what became Chicago's Metra.  A few years later, one such train joined the collection at Illinois Railway Museum.  Sometimes, when the museum do their July 3 re-enactment of the abrupt end of Chicago Aurora and Elgin interurban service, the Commuter Streamliner serves as the rescue train.

Sunday was Vintage Transportation Expo, and with the owners and friends of vintage motor vehicles on the grounds, the seating capacity of Roarin' Elgin interurbans and the Commuter Streamliner alike proved useful.

Arguably, commuter trains that were new when I was in elementary school are of a vintage that merits preservation.  Now meriting preservation, the diesels that were Amtrak's first new passenger power as well as early alternating current diesel locomotives of the late 1980s.  The power the museum detailed to pick them up at the interchange, one each from Burlington Northern and from Santa Fe, also strikes me as too new for a museum.

The two from Amtrak, 231 and 6976, initially Amtrak 644, are operable and might be part of the parade of diesels during the upcoming "Diesel Days" weekend.

All three were spotted on the diesel shop leads for the car aficionados to contemplate.