The Webmaster -- Brad Logan

Metra 305 Franklin Park, Illinois Franklin Park 3rd Annual Railroad Daze May 16, 1998		C&NW 151 Union, Illinois Illinois Railway Museum May 30, 1999

Hello. My name is Brad Logan and I am the webmaster of this site. Most of the pictures on this site were taken by me from August 1996 to today. I am a college student in the Chicago area. You can e-mail me at f40c@drgw.net.

My main railroading interest is the North Western. When I was little, my dad and my grandpa would take me up to the C&NW mainline tracks to see trains go by. I always loved seeing the green and yellow engines. I first rode on a train in 1982 when I was 2. It was a Regional Transportation Authority C&NW/West Line train, with cars still in C&NW paint. This was my introduction to what is now the Metra system. Since then, I have logged probably over 10,000 miles on the Metra system. Now for many commuters, that may be nothing. I have only taken Metra 12 times (6 round trips) to work. The rest of those miles are from pleasure trips. There are even some weekends when I get the $5 weekend pass and ride 500 miles in one weekend!

I have been over nearly the entire Metra system. In fact there are only about 50 miles of it that I haven't been on. That would include the Union Pacific North Line between Waukegan and Kenosha, the McHenry branch of the Union Pacific Northwest Line and the South Chicago & Blue Island branches of the Metra Electric. Other than that, I have been on every other part of the Metra system (excluding the South Shore). And most lines I have been on multiple times. I have also riden a Metra train over tracks that Metra doesn't run on. I took a 20th Century Railroad Club excursion from Elmhurst to the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. The train used the Union Pacific West Line tracks to West Chicago. It then curved northwest on the Union Pacific Belvidere branch. I have some pictures of that trip on this site. The picture of 137 was taken at the Illinois Railway Museum as were two of the pictures on the Metra Locomotives Lined-Up section. Plus there are 4 pictures of the Elgin station and yard I took off the train. Those are in the Metra Yards section under Elgin.

So why did I choose F40C for my screen name? Well, I like Metra and the F40C is a locomotive model unique to Metra. There is no mistaking it. It looks similar to Santa Fe's and Milwaukee Road's FP45's and Amtrak's SDP40F's, but the F40C has stainless steel panels on its sides. It is also the only locomotive model I have successfully photographed every unit ever built. They are Metra 600-614. 600-612 were built for the North West Suburban Mass Transit District as their 40-52. They carried Milwaukee Road logos, and today still have their NWSMTD logos on them. 613 & 614 were built for the North Suburban Mass Transit District as their 53 & 54. All currently run on Metra's Milwaukee District North and West Lines. However, Metra will be getting rid of them in the next few years. If you want pictures of them, go get them now. I am now trying to get slides of all of them as well.