CSX Smoker by Matt Gentry

I was headed down to USI for my 1:30 class a couple weeks ago and as I was headed west on the Lloyd Expressway/SR62 I happened to noticed some thick black smoke rolling out of the city from what seemed to be the area around Franklin St. and Wabash Ave. I didn’t think anything of it as there had been some fires in town recently and it is part of the industrial area of town. I kept heading west and noticed the smoke kept moving south. As I just crossed over Fulton Ave., I realized that the smoke was following the main line south into Howell yard! My next thought was “I gotta get a picture!” So I zoomed ahead and turned down St. Joe to cut back up Ohio St just in time to snap these few pics. As the locomotive was limping into the yards, I was honestly looking for a fire to start billowing out the exhaust port anytime, but it didn’t. This locomotive had some serious problems though. The second unit was revved way up to compensate for the loss of power from this one, which sounded like it was only running on about 13 cylinders. Needless to say, an exciting few minutes. – Matt Gentry

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