Well who didn't know that? Is a phrase which is said amongst my railfan friends and I for those moments you don't expect when out photographing trains and that was exactly my reaction upon shooting this train. Because I was visiting Wisconsin for an unplanned business trip and had part of a travel day to get some train photography done, I headed out looking for some Canadian National trains once I checked into my hotel at Burlington. Since Canadian National locomotives are pretty rare in the southeast, I really wanted to catch some while I was up here. Seeing that the north end of Nestle siding indicated a train coming my way, I looked for a place to set up. I soon found a picturesque trestle that separates Honey Creek and Echo Lake where the train would cross. The nearby Wagner Park provided an easy place to leave my rental as I waited for the train. Having no radio with me and the fact that all 5 grade crossings in the city are quiet zones meant that I had to be ready and in position for the train since the only indication of its presence would be the rumbling of the locomotives as they ascended upon me. Standing in my chosen spot for 45 minutes watching the clouds dart across the sky shading and illuminating the trestle in a cyclical fashion made me think of how great this shot will look if I could pull it off and capture the CN power I expected in a moment of cloudless sunlight. When that familiar diesel engine sound started to fill the air, excitement built inside me as I eagerly put the camera to my face and focused on when to start pressing the shutter down. Soon the engines stared to emerge from the bushes as they moved from right to left across my viewfinder. I habitually took my shots of the lead units and soon noticed that the orange and black of the expected Canadian National paint scheme was looking a lot like the familiar blue and yellow of CSX from down south. That couldn’t be right, could it? Well unfortunately for me it was. Once the engines passed, I looked up into the sky, held out my arms and said “well who didn’t know that?” as the realization hit me that even though I was some 880 miles from home, I still couldn’t escape my usual CSX locomotives.
