Richard's American Train Adventures

[richard carr]

I decided to spend Saturday out and about south of Chicago. I headed first to Pines Junction to see plenty of trains. Sat nav took me through Chicago as traffic was very light and took me to Michigan Avenue East Chicago, so I thought I might as well stop by the yard there.



A pair of Indianan Harbor Belt locos were working the yard





This is a new bit of track, that wasn't here a year ago



I then spotted them moving cars around at the freight car repair shop a bit further up the road.



It was time to get some breakfast and head over to Pines Junction

It was all action as usual, these 2 are pushing a train back into the yard.



I walked over to the CN lines, the water under the bridge looked deeper than ever, I wasn't going to try driving through that.

I got over there and of course the gates went off on the CSX lines



This train came out of the yard next, I was listening to the yard radio and they said this had 134 cars, 117 loaded and 17 empties, it was a long train, it headed off south.





They were doing a bit of switching with this train behind it.



I walked back to the car on the other side, Amtrak then appeared out of no where.



Quickly followed by an eastbound manifest

 

[richard carr]

This had been lurking on the far side of the hump waiting to go into the yard.




Next it was CSX's turn with another manifest heading east.



Then a coal train on NS heading west



This then got passed by a UP powered autorack train



That ACe is just filthy



By now I was listening to GP qualifying on the BBC, and all these pesky trains kept turning up !



and another CSX manifest



A former Bessemer and Lake Erie SD45 T2 leads some more cars up the hump



Then CSX sends a 2 bay hopper train west towards Chicago.





Then this starts heading up the hump



Yes it's those former UP gensets, it looks like they are taking them back to Homewood.

I set off for Griffith to get a decent photo of train.

 

[richard carr]

Griffith is about 20 minutes drive to the south of Pines Junction, I stopped on to catch the train before it reached the junction at south Broad Street.







I then tried to beat it to the junction but got blocked by the train itself.
All I saw was it disappearing into the distance.



I decided to head west and chase it, I was going to Matteson where the interconnectors to the IC mainline are.

Walking up to the railfan platform this large deer was hiding in the scrub as I walked by, talk about making you jump.



It was safe enough as there was no trains to be seen anywhere.

I carried on west to Joliet. The CN has a large yard there from the EJ&E, BNSF also passes through the town with the end of Transcon 2.
There are also Metra and Amtrak and the Iowa Interstate crosses transcon 2 at the former Union station.

I eventually found the CN yard, it proved difficult to find anywhere with a good vantage point. Not a lot was happening, but in the middle of this phot you can see 2 yellow locos.



It's the Gensets, the train must have been heading here to Joliet.



I found my way round to the other end of the yard and here are the CN locos doing a bit of switching.



With nothing else to see I made my round to the former Union Station, I stopped off at burger king on the way there and then sat down to eat my lunch, of course a train arrived when I'm in the middle of it.



The Iowa Interstate crossing has been replaced with a jump style one, it's a lot quieter, a good job as they were just setting up for a wedding on the platform while I was there.





Another train soon arrived, the first container of the day, but all 40 footers, not an amazon box in sight

 

[Big Train James]

Yes it's those former UP gensets, it looks like they are taking them back to Homewood

Wouldn't be surprised if they were heading back to NRE in either Mt. Vernon or Paducah. The railroads don't really want them, probably never really did. But they got tax or emissions credits for using them. The credits program is expired, so the railroads no longer have any reason to keep the gensets.