NWI CHAPTER
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
May 2025 from
Jerry Pyfer

Photographer of the Year Contest, The Results

April’s NWI Chapter meeting featured the Dana Dawes Photographer of the Year Contest (POTY).

Category C encouraged photographers to be innovative and creative. This category came about when digital photography was gaining traction. Rather than fear the digital abilities of Photo Shopping images, this category encourages them to use the abilities to the fullest extent.
Four entries gained the most votes:
3rd Place - Jason Leverton
2nd Place - David Scharenberg
1st Place and tied - David Scharenberg and Ron Lundstrom

Category B Anywhere - Anytime was created to offer a wide range of possibilities.
3rd Place and tied - Tom Paris and Jason Leverton
2nd Place and tied - David Scharenberg - Richard Leonard - Jason Leverton - Dan Fredrickson
1st Place - Tom Paris

Category A determines the POTY award. Here photographers had to record their entry within the State of Illinois or a bordering state to qualify. This came about as the Canadian Rockies and western railroading photographs were wiping out the competition.
3rd Place and tied - Dan Fredrickson and Erik Rasmussen
2nd Place and tied Robert Jordan, Jeremy Schrader and Dan Fredrickson
1st Place and standing alone was Dan Fredrickson with his late evening shot of the Empress steam train at Elmwood Park, Illinois with the illuminated water tower in the background.
Congratulations!

You can view all of the winning photographs on our website:
nwinrhs.org and click on "Photographer of the Year".

2025 Membership Report
The NWI Chapter dues renewal season has come to an end.
I usually wait until after the end to tally where our membership stands. We had nine subscribers/members who failed to renew for 2025. Some of these folks were long standing participants with the chapter.
The NRHS membership stands at 30.
The subscribers stand at 66.
We exchange four newsletters with other NRHS chapters.

Whose consist could this be?
April’s NWL featured another consist. Did you figure out whose consist it could have been?
The locomotive depicted was the EMD 1963 product, the DD35. Only two railroads bought this locomotive, the Southern Pacific which ordered three and the Union Pacific with 27.
The DD35 was a 5,000hp unit which was basically two cabless GP35s on a common frame. The four axle trucks replaced the regular B-B trucks under the GP35. Just as with other cabless units, it required a cabbed locomotive to control it on the road.
Only the Union Pacific followed up with the cabbed DD35A in 1965.
All DD35 variants were scrapped by the very early 1980s.

NWI Running Extra Zoom Show
May 12th saw nine participants on the Zoom program. I shared a chapter out of my “Rockford’s Railroad Evolution”. We looked at the Chicago & North Western which changed into the Union Pacific in 1995.
June 16, 2025 at 7pm will see the next installment covering the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy in Rockford which of course changed into the Burlington Northern in 1970 before seeing the Rockford branch from Flag Center sold off to North American Railnet becoming the Illinois RailNet and then again to OmniTRAX becoming the Illinois Railway.
This program originally aired at the Rock River Valley Division’s January 2025 meeting.

NWI on the Road
The NWI Chapter will be taking two meetings on the road this year.
The August 23, 2025 meeting will take place at the Oregon, Illinois depot. Some details will be changing, we will include those changes in the August newsletter.
September 26, 2025, we will enjoy another joint meeting with the Iowa Chapter in Savanna, Illinois. Details are still being worked out but this will be an afternoon meeting to be sure.
One thing I can say at this point is;
We will be meeting at the Savanna Museum & Cultural Center, 406 Main Street, Savanna, Illinois. Details about the museum can be found at: savannamuseum.org
When you go to the museum website, scroll down the page of model railroad photographs to the bottom. You might like the railroaders’ interviews. I thought they were all too short.

Railfanning is…
Railfanning is taking the grandkids to Little Amerrika amusement park so you get to ride the steam powered train. And it is good old coal smoke

For more information about the Chapter, see Meetings and Join.