Western Railroad Discussion > Chicago Trip Part II: BNSF's Chillicothe Subdivision

For the past week, I was in the Chicago area for a get together with several close friends with some railfanning thrown in. I'm going to do my photos in series by railroad/rail line/locations. 

Part II: BNSF's Chillicothe Subdivision - The Searchlights 

On June 22, 2015, me and a friend of mine got an early start to the day and headed straight for Verona, Illinois along BNSF's Chillicothe Subdivision. As the morning progressed on, our other friends started to join us, which ended up being a good day in the end. Little did we know, an EF3 tornado would hit the same general area that same night. 

1) The first westbound of the morning through Verona is the New York City, New York to Los Angeles, California Guaranteed Service Intermodal led by NS Dash 9 No. 8898 and a CSX AC4400CW.

2) A few minutes later, an eastbound empty vehicle train races east through Verona.

3) Not too long afterwards, an eastbound UP trackage rights intermodal train to Global IV passes under neat the searchlights at the west end of the Verona crossovers. 

Some more...

John Crisanti
Longmont, CO

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4) A westbound baretable train is seen crossing over from Main 2 to 1 at Verona. 

5) A few moments later, an eastbound hotshot Z9 races east under the searchlights.

6) Further west, an westbound Q-Train rounds the sweeping curve at Ancona.

Some more...

John Crisanti
Longmont, CO

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7) Another eastbound baretable train heads through the searchlight signals at the east end of Ancona.

8) Not too far behind the baretable, an eastbound Z-Train blasts through the signals at east Ancona.

9) Later that afternoon, BNSF GE's lead a westbound stack train through the searchlights at Toluca as Max Wipperman grabs his shots.

Some more...

John Crisanti
Longmont, CO

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10) A westbound UP autorack train races west through Toluca.

11)  After letting some of the westbound traffic to clear up, an eastbound ballast train led by a clean SD70ACe heads east through Toluca.

12) Three BNSF GE's elephant style lead this westbound stack train around Houlihan's Curve just east of Edelstein.

A couple more...

John Crisanti
Longmont, CO

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13) Closing up the day is a westbound Z-Train passing under the signal bridges at Edelstein.

14) A few minutes later, an eastbound Z-Train races east through Edelstein.

Thanks for looking!

John Crisanti
Longmont, CO

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Excellent composition in your shots. Great results in less than ideal conditions.

pummer Wrote:
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> Excellent composition in your shots. Great results
> in less than ideal conditions.

Second that motion. Nice coverage of some of the remaining searchlight signal locations on a very busy and favorite piece of railroad. Thanks for posting them.

MC
Columbia, Missouri

In picture number three you caught the mighty UP Arrowedge in action.  What is the general consensus on that thing - does it help enough to justify its continued use?

WOW!  That is some great stuff!  (So was your UP Geneva Sub pics). Can't wait for more.

-Tom

P.S.  Train 1:  Just by observing the first few containers in the photo, that is not the New York-LA train.  More likely a CSX run-thru, actually.

I hope I mistook something - First we look at a Westbound train of empty container flats - then we see a Eastbound empty container train.  Is this the lazy susan approach to car distruibution?  If you need flats to load, wait til some come by???

Norm

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar

GREAT stuff...!! Thanks for sharing.

These are awesome shots, and Part I was great too! Does anyone know what kind of contraption is on top of the first stack car in the UP train from #3?

aronco Wrote:
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> I hope I mistook something - First we look at a
> Westbound train of empty container flats - then we
> see a Eastbound empty container train.  Is this
> the lazy susan approach to car distruibution?  If
> you need flats to load, wait til some come by???
>
> Norm

Could be "storage in transit" - if yard space is at a premium and the buckets aren't needed immediately, then you can "store" them by putting them on a road train, which will take a couple days to reach its destination.

Great coverage of the chilli sub! Glad to see all the searchlights are safe for the moment.

-Brian

I agree with everyone else -- great pictures in a great area. Been to the first three locations myself to get shots of those old signals. Love those old relics and hope they hang on for a while yet at least until I can make another trip up there. Thanks for sharing the sights of your trip.

Kim Heusel

Awesome photos.

Ronda Thomas