It's the chosen one...The Bird!
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Now there is a classic C&NW "Bird!" The train crews began calling the TOFC trains "Birds" after the C&NW started marketing their premium TOFC business as the "Falcon Service." Surprisingly, the C&NW actually spent money to hire a professional artist to come up with a very nice rendition of a falcon, in flight, which was painted on the sides of all C&NW-owned trailers. A very nice rendition! The westbound trains out of Wood Street (later Global I) were: Train No. 243 (the evening "Bird," a regular job), Train No. 2nd 243 (the night "Bird," a pool job), and Train No. 245 (the afternoon "Bird," a regular job). The eastbound "Birds" were: Train No. 242, Train No. 244 (the early version/the later version became a refrigerator train), Train No. 246, Train No. 248, and Train No. 250. All were 70 mph trains. The very first eastbound "Bird," Train No. 242, had a rather rough start. They were on the north track (Main Track no. 3 in the C&NW days) between College Ave. (Wheaton, IL) and Glen Ellyn, running around manifest Train No. 380 (running the middle track, Main Track no. 2) when Train No. 380 went in the ditch ahead of them around the curve. The engineer on Train No. 242, Woody Wilson (an excellent engineer, by the way), immediately figured out what happened to Train No. 380 when that train went into emergency right next to them and he saw flashing blue light in the night sky arcing from downed high-tension lines next to the mains, even though the derailment was as yet out of their line of sight. Woody put Train No. 242 into emergency, but there was no way they were going to stop short of the derailment. Train No. 242 came around the curve and collided with the cars that were jack-knifed onto MT no. 3. Fortunately, if you can call it that, they slid northeastward off of a derailed auto rack, eventually coming to a stop in the middle of College Avenue. Thankfully, neither Woody nor the head brakeman were injured and since the derailment/collision happened in the middle of the night (about two or three in the morning) there was no traffic on College Avenue.
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