The California Zephyr (also seen) was scheduled to arrive in Denver at 8:40 AM according to the June 1965 editiion of the Official Guide.

Unfortunately, I will have to speculate on a couple of pieces of information. This photo is the result of having film left over in the camera while I was taking the film to a lab for processing from a job I just finished. I popped off a couple of frames on the Roosevelt Road overpass at the Chicago Union Station (CUS) south throat approach. No harm done, the entire strip of film had to be processed anyway, why waste the film? I believe this is an ex-NYC E-8 of the same road number. I believe this is the "Valpo", a former PRR commuter train between Valparaiso, Indiana and Chicago. In 1965, there were two PRR trains each way, every day. If it were a PRR train, it would be either #453 (arriving at CUS at 7:05AM) or #455 (arriving at CUS at 7:30AM). I do not know the CR train numbers. Conrail took over the PRR/PC commuter trains in Chicago. The only Chicago commuter line entirely discontinued in those years was the old Pennsylvania Railroad line to Valparaiso, Indiana. During most of the PRR years GP7's and GP9's were used. But during Penn Central operation in the early and mid 1970's, prior to Conrail's takeover of PC, E8's were used. Amtrak assumed responsibility of the service in 1979, service was discontinued in 1991. The yard on the left is the former PRR coach yard, and the empty yard on the right is the former CB&Q, at this date, the BN coach yard. If this is a weekday, it will soon be choked with bi-level stainless steel commuter coaches.

I was driving south on I-65 and happened to see headlights approaching from the west. I jumped off the Interstate, but by then this train had already passed me. I had to take some liberties with the local speed zones to get this photo, and even then the best I could do was get ahead a short distance, pull over and stick the camera out the window. The hogger was working his engines. A visit to Google Earth today shows that these rails have since been removed. * NOTE * Mark E left a Comment asking if I was sure this was shot in 1984. I went back and looked at the slide mounts (there are three slides in this sequence), and they are all stamped June 1982 and sequentially numbered. According to crcyc.railfan.net the E8's were all retired in January 1978, so I'll admit there is some question about the validity of the date. I do have a couple of slides of a CR E8 in Chicago commuter service dated July 1978. I was on a business trip and these are slides from my employer's camera, so they are not as carefully marked as they should be. The slide date stamp is all I can go by at this point.