Western Railroad Discussion > A Day in Decatur, IL

Been a while since I posted here, so might as well get back to it. On Tuesday I got an opportunity to spend most of the day out chasing trains though at my wife's request, I decided to stay local. This isn't a problem, as my town of Decatur, IL offers a great selection of action on any given day. 

1. DREI's daily 101 manifest heads east out of town with a short train and only one of their three units online. 

2. CN's L525 returns to the yard crossing the Sangamon River at the Lake Decatur dam. 

3. NS is the main player in town with a massive terminal (the largest flat yard in the US) and they were plenty busy this morning. A late D29 rolls towards Harristown and a meet with 252. Normally this train is gone before sunrise but for whatever reason they didn't leave town until after 9am. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/25 21:37 by retlaw121.

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4. The aforementioned 252 rolls into town after meeting D29. This train is among the hottest on the line with Triple Crown containers in tow, as it and its counterpart 251 replaced the last two roadrailer trains last year. 

5. Jaunting up a short hill, DREI's Decatur local 100 runs south on the former IC Decatur-Champaign line on CN tracks as they head back to their yard having made their delivery and pickup at the massive ADM facility in town. 

6. With fire trucks parked out conveniently in the sun having just received a bath, CN's daily Decatur-Memphis manifest A432 passes the Mt. Zion fire department south east of Decatur. 

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7. In a rare turn of events for the town, a new manufacturer opened it's doors in the form of a Tillamook ice cream factory, which took over the former Prairie Farms facility that had sat abandoned for years. NS 148 crosses MLK Boulevard with the factory in the background.

8. I took a break in the afternoon and returned around sundown to catch NS 121 crossing Lake Decatur over an impressive concrete bridge built by the Wabash in the early 1900s. The columns for the Illinois Terminal bridge can be seen in the background. A dry August and September has muted the fall colors this year and also dropped the water level down significantly. So much so that I could actually walk out much further towards the bridge on what would normally be water but was dry lake bed on this day. 

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Thanks for posting your interesting series.
ALLEN

Fantastic series! Dig all of the standard cabs.

Very nice with some unique angles!

Excellent series!!