Western Railroad Discussion > Galesburg IL Trains from the Air

After chasing the Big Boy in northern Illinois on July 30th, my dad and I stopped in Galesburg for a few hours in the late afternoon/early evening on our way home to central Illinois. We set up in Peck Park for most of the time we were there, and the train traffic was pretty heavy. Since I had brought my drone along for the Big Boy chase and had plenty of battery power left, I made use of it during our stop here. 

First clip (without sound) is the SW Chief (or California Zephyr) pulling into Galesburg.
Next train is an NS stack train heading east (again no audio)
A westbound grain train rolls by next (finally got my audio recording set up by this train)
This grain train is followed by a northbound grain train accelerates out of the yard
As the grain train continues passing by, a westbound stack train rolls under it, equipped with mid-train DPU as well as DPU on the rear
Next, a southbound frac sand train rolls into town on the high line with some nice older power
An autorack train is next, led by a CN unit. 
Last scene was me trying some fun camera work with the drone.

These 7 trains, plus a few others I didn't catch with the drone all went by over the course of 2 to 3 hours. 

Thanks for watching, 
    -Caleb



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/19 10:34 by mtzctrain.

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Thanks for the aerial perspective, I’ve been to Peck several times but it was cool to see it from that angle

Posted from iPhone

Outstanding video, I liked the over-under catch. But my favorite was the rooflines of the autoracks, that was some great camera work.

So what lines/routes are we looking at here? One of these days I’ll make it to Galesburg.

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

atsf121 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> So what lines/routes are we looking at here? One
> of these days I’ll make it to Galesburg.
>
> Nathan
>
> Posted from iPhone

The Amtrak opens the video on the former Burlington.
The lower of the tracks is old Santa Fe.
Maps are your friend. ;)

Very nice shots.

atsf121 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Outstanding video, I liked the over-under catch.
> But my favorite was the rooflines of the
> autoracks, that was some great camera work.
>
> So what lines/routes are we looking at here? One
> of these days I’ll make it to Galesburg.
>
> Nathan

Thanks Nathan! The high lines split just north of the bridge; those are the Barstow and Mendota subdivisions. The Chillicothe sub runs on the low line. Not sure how many trains BNSF runs in and out of Galesburg daily, but it's quite a large number.
   -Caleb

Wow, cool video's.  I have to get a drone.

There has to be 100 trains or more a day past Peck park.  The park just screams for a nice elevated railfan platform. 

Oher good viewing spots in Galesburg are the Amtrak depot less than a mile south of Peck park at the north exit of the giant Galesburg yard,  there is a small but nice CBQ museum here.  Also, the county Highway 10 bridge the crosses over the middle of the yard and has space on the shoulders for parking.  

Excellent videa with a unique vantage point at an all-to-familiar location.  Thanks for not showing endless strings of the same car on unit trains which some people tend to do.  This was much more interesting, as a result!

Excellent video, and the VOTD designation was well earned.  I especially liked how you showed the split for the "Peavine" route to Savanna, IL, and the Twin Cities.  I hadn't realized it started quite that soon.

One minor correction.  The "eastbound" grain train is actually westbound, but you got it right later for the super stacker so you are forgiven.  

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

ntharalson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Excellent video, and the VOTD designation was well
> earned.  I especially liked how you showed the
> split for the "Peavine" route to Savanna, IL, and
> the Twin Cities.  I hadn't realized it started
> quite that soon.
>
> One minor correction.  The "eastbound" grain
> train is actually westbound, but you got it right
> later for the super stacker so you are
> forgiven.  
>
> Nick Tharalson,
> Marion, IA

Thank you! And thanks for the correction, I fixed the post.

Nice video!!