261 Movie Special Train

Milwaukee Road #261
"Public Enemies" Movie Special

Shortly after the Peter Lerro Photographers Special featuring #261 the #261 was called upon for another special event. On May 15, 2008 Milwaukee Road #261 and four cars made the eastbound trip from Minneapolis, MN all the way to Chicago, IL for a role in a Hollywood movie. The movie "Public Enemies" featuring the story of Dillinger. starring Johnny Depp was doing some filming at Chicago's Union Station.

Milwaukee #261 was chosen by the production company to be the steam locomotive sitting at Union Station during the filming. The filming took place over the weekend. NOTE - For those that are "technical" people Milwaukee Road #261 was not built until 10 years after Dillinger died.

On Tuesday May 20th the #261 began its westbound trip back to Minneapolis, MN. The steam train stopped in Milwaukee, WI for the night. Spending the night was a good way to get out the word about the June excursions the #261 would be pulling out of Milwaukee. NOTE - These trips ending up being postponed due to severe flooding in Wisconsin. On Wednesday May 21st with sunny skies the #261 began the trip back to Minneapolis. The weather was great and the train moved along quickly. Several special spots were chosen to catch the westbound train. The big bonus was the lack of a diesel locomotive and a matched set of Milwaukee Road painted passenger cars with the Skytop on the rear. Below are some shots from the eastbound and westbound trips.

Click on the thumbnail photos to see larger images. The larger image is not the actual size of the photo it is only about 20% of the actual size. Original Photo size is 3072x2048 pixels.