It’s good to see Becky back at the helm with her Square Photo Challenges. This month we’re Moving Forward with cars at Volo Auto Museum, trains at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union and on Shanks’s pony.
It’s good to see Becky back at the helm with her Square Photo Challenges. This month we’re Moving Forward with cars at Volo Auto Museum, trains at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union and on Shanks’s pony.
When I saw the subject for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Any Type Of Light Fixture, this week, I thought ‘perfect!’ When I went to visit the Sanfilippo Estate in Barrington recently, one of the things I paid particular attention to was all the beautiful lamps, chandeliers and lighting fixtures that seemed to fill the house, even on the stained glass ceiling of the ornate elevator. Needless to say, the camera got a good workout.
In keeping with the Sanfilippo’s fabulous music collection, some of the lamps incorporate record turntables. No wonder they call it the Place de la Musique!
In the Music Room, where we were treated to a thrilling theater organ recital including an accompaniment to the silent movie A Christmas Carol produced by the Thomas Edison studios, the brilliant lighting matched the magnificent surroundings.
These splendid lamps and chandeliers made me want to run out and replace all my tatty light fixtures. Of course you need the grand rooms to carry it off, so maybe not.
It would be remiss of me not to say a big ‘Thank you” to the Sanfilippo family for graciously allowing us into their gorgeous home and making everyone feel so welcome. I hope you will join me here on Getting The Picture for part three of my visit to the Place de la Musique.
It’s been a while since I participated in the Lens Artists Photo Challenge but when I saw Anne’s choice of subject for this week, I realized I was working on something that would easily Fill The Frame.
Welcome to The Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. It is the largest of its kind in the United States. On our most recent trip a few weeks ago, we got to walk through five display barns and took a ride on a streetcar and an electric train. Although I’m not exactly a train buff, I enjoy any opportunity to take pictures and this was one of those times. It was a lovely day, not too hot, so just right for walking around and, if you want to see everything, there is quite a bit of walking involved, outdoors as well as inside.
I was intrigued by these two stone sculptures that I took to be from some now defunct station in Chicago but I couldn’t find anyone who could tell me where they originated. If anyone from the Chicago area has any ideas I’d be interested to hear.
There are elevated walkways in between the carriages in the display barns so you can get a good view of the inside of the cars. I haven’t traveled in anything other than the Metra and CTA trains in our area, and it’s been many years since I enjoyed my favorite mode of transport in the UK, so I can’t speak for rail travel in general, but these interiors certainly looked quite luxurious.
The streetcar ride took us on a loop around the museum and although it wasn’t what you’d call a scenic tour, it gave us a look behind the scenes at some of the old stock that wasn’t on display and other odd items like the London Transport bus.
The display barns are full of carriages, locomotives and all kinds of rolling stock, some dating back to the late 1890’s. There are over 500 pieces of equipment at the museum which covers 100 acres of land.
Our ride on the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin electric train took us on a 40-minute round trip on the several miles of track that the museum owns in the surrounding countryside. Nearly all the people who work at the museum are volunteers and are very knowledgeable about the railway and its history. They were a cheerful group who answered all our questions and shared their love of trains with us. The Museum was founded in 1953 and moved to Union in 1964.
My eldest daughter and her husband are real railway enthusiasts and last year attended the IRM’s annual fundraiser at the Sanfillipo Estate in Barrington, where they won a prize in the raffle. My son-in-law got to ride in the engineer’s cab in one of these beauties.
It’s not hard to see why IRM relies in large part on fundraising events. Restoration work on pieces like this costs thousands of dollars. In 2016 IRM purchased a 130ft turntable for $10,000 that will be used to store their steam locomotives.
Our family does have a history with the railways in the UK. My 2nd great-grandfather started out as a plate-layer for the railway in 1853. He went on to become a railway guard, then stationmaster and at the time of his retirement was a railway inspector. When I researched his history I found that at the time of his marriage in 1853, he was unable to write his name in the registry, so I thought his rise through the ranks from plate-layer to railway inspector quite impressive. I couldn’t help wondering what he would have made of some of these displays.
It’s not always easy to give an indication of just how enormous some of these locomotives are. The wheels on some of them were taller than my 5ft 3in height.
Before we left, we stopped in at the hobby shop where they had a grand layout of model trains and shelves full of items for sale.
We weren’t sure if the Apostle Clock at the Oshkosh Public Museum was fully functional so we waited very patiently for the little doors to open and sure enough, when the angel at the top tapped out 11-o-clock on the chimes, they opened and out came Jesus and the Apostles.
My contribution to Dan Antion’s Thursday Doors Photo Challenge.
OK, I know this is not what Ann-Christine had in mind for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge this week but if you really want to see an interesting take on the One Image/One Story theme you can do no better than visit her website. I already had a story to tell but it comes with rather more than a single image. The thing that I most wanted to see while we were staying in Duluth was one of the big cargo ships going under the historic aerial lift bridge. We checked the shipping schedule and hurried down to the harbor early in the morning on our second day in the hopes of catching the arrival of ‘American Integrity’. There had been a storm the night before so it wasn’t surprising that the ship was quite a bit behind schedule and we passed the time walking through Canal Park, up to the lighthouse and along the waterfront.
After a couple of hours, the Integrity appeared, a speck on the horizon, but having made its way towards the harbor, it slowed to a halt and remained tantalizingly at anchor, two miles out. We waited for what seemed like an age, and then, not knowing how long it planned on staying there, we decided to take a chance and go for lunch at a nearby restaurant. It must have been a fairly long lunch because by the time we got back to the bridge, the Integrity had already come in. To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. Even the sight of a seagull doing a dance routine on the jetty failed to raise my spirits.
Since the bridge plays such an important part in what I was hoping to see, this would probably be a good time to say something about it. According to Wikipedia, it was originally built as a transporter bridge in 1905 and was converted to a vertical lift bridge in 1929. The bridge can be raised to its full height of 135ft in about a minute and is raised approximately 5,000 times per year. The American Society of Civil Engineers designated the bridge a National Historic Landmark in 2017.
Although I enjoyed the rest of our stay in Duluth, I couldn’t help ruminating on the fact that I’d missed my opportunity to see one of the big ships. On our final day, we took another look at the shipping schedule which showed that the Hon. James L. Oberstar was due to leave port that afternoon. Although we’d already seen the bridge being raised for several sight-seeing boats, this wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. But this was more like it!
With warning signals clanging, the bridge began its ascent as spectators hurried to watch the ship make its approach. As the Oberstar cleared the bridge, the ship sounded its horn, which was loud enough, but when the bridge horn sounded a reply it was absolutely ear-splitting. Long-short-short is known as the Captains Salute but on November 10th, the anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the Lift Bridge exchanges a special salute, long-long-long-short-short, with the SS Arthur M. Anderson in honor of the Fitzgerald and her crew, all 29 of whom were lost. The Anderson was the last freighter to have contact with the Fitzgerald before it sank and was the first on scene to search for survivors.
I couldn’t help thinking about the Edmund Fitzgerald as I watched Oberstar churning out into the waters of Lake Superior. It’s difficult to imagine, on calm days, lake waters being rough enough to sink a ship of this size, but the Great Lakes can be treacherous. It must have been the sea-faring genes in me (both my grandfather and great-uncle were sailors in the early 1900’s) but I felt quite choked up as the Oberstar pulled away.
This week, Tina is looking for Interesting Architecture as the theme for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. I have featured the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Bartlett, Illinois in previous posts but when I think of interesting architecture my mind automatically goes to this place and I can’t help but refer back to it. The Mandir is so unlike anything else that we see here in the Chicago area.
Apart from the beautiful design and incredible craftsmanship of the structure, it’s interesting to see how its appearance changes with the light, depending on the time of day or even year. There are moments when it looks mellow and mystical and at others, when the midday sun beats down on it and the air is sharp and clear, the white exterior is almost blinding.
Hand carved in India from Italian marble and Turkish limestone, the sculpted pieces, 40,000 in total, were then shipped to Bartlett where they were assembled on a 27-acre lot over a period of 16 months. The Mandir was officially inaugurated in 2004.
In 2004, the complex was awarded the Chicago Building Congress Merit Award and has been recognized by The American Institute of Architects as one of the 150 Great Places in Illinois. The Mandir, previously closed because of the COVID pandemic, has now reopened its doors to visitors.
This week, Cee is featuring Sand or Dirt in her Fun Foto Challenge. What could be more fun than playing in the sand? It’s the simple things in life that bring us the most joy.
Amy is asking us to choose a day in our week for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The busiest day in my week spent visiting Duluth was when we took a train ride along the north shore, but first we decided to check out the city from a more lofty elevation. Enger Tower, perched high above Duluth on the scenic Skyline Parkway, gives a grand view of the surrounding area. This 80-foot tall, 5 story observation tower was built as a tribute to Norwegian businessman and philanthropist, Bert Enger, and was first dedicated by Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Martha of Norway in 1939. It has undergone some restoration work since then and it is now open to anyone willing to climb the stairs. I made it to the top and was rewarded with a panoramic view of the Twin Ports including the aerial lift bridge and further, towards North Shore.
At the foot of Enger Tower lies Enger Park and within that is a small Japanese Garden featuring a Peace Bell, the gift of Duluth’s sister city of Ohara-Isumi.
After our tour of Enger Park we drove back into the heart of the city to the historic Duluth Train Depot. The station was built in 1892 and served 7 different rail lines. It now houses the Lake Superior Railroad Museum which was opened in 1973. From here you can take a ride on one of the scenic railroad excursion trains, but more on that in a bit. First we checked out everything in the museum, inside the trains and out.
We ended our day with a 90-minute ride, with drinks and nibbles, in the observation car of the Duluth Zephyr, along the shoreline to just past the Glensheen Mansion. The trip, made at a sedate pace, gave plenty of opportunity to see the sights in comfort.
Some spooky characters Pulled Up A Seat and joined the party at our Fall Family Festival earlier this month. Everyone looks forward to this annual event as it’s one of the few times in the year that all the familly gets together and, as usual, our daughter and her husband made the party a special Halloween treat for young and old alike.
This week, Ann-Christine is looking at the Weird and Wonderful as a theme for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. I guess I’ve seen some weird and wonderful things in my time and the following artwork could possibly qualify for Cee’s Photographing Public Art Challenge too. The first place that springs to mind is the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. The exterior and interior are decorated with crop art murals made from corn husks and other natural materials.
Closer to home, in Chicago’s Millennium Park, Anish Kapoor’s sculpture, officially titled Cloud Gate but more affectionately known as The Bean, could definitely be classified as weird and wonderful.
But the prize for the most weird and wonderful, from my perspective, has to go to House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin. This place is truly awesome, with it’s fantastic and bizarre collections carefully displayed for maximum effect. Here is just a sample of what you might see there, from the Infinity Room to dolls on carousels.
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