Eastern Railroad Discussion > 3 Illinois Shortline questions

Later this week will be railfanning in the area and wanted to check out the Vandalia RR, the Decatur Jct RR and the Eastern Illinois RR.Appreciate any & all info regarding their operations.
Thanks, Fred

Decatur Jct runs from Assumption IL to Decatur dont know frequency but its 5-10 mph running

Vandalia Railroad switcher is sitting in downtown Vandalia next to interlocking tower which is their office. I have not seen this railroad run ever, I dont believe there is any traffic as the line dead ends on the north side of I-70 by a steel company

Eastern Illinois is based at Charleston IL I know they run weekdays but beyond that no idea. 

Also you may want to check out Watco's Decatur and Eastern Illinois from the east side of town toward Indiana, they seem to be running some decent size trains since takeover. Last I knew train left Decatur and met counterpart from Paris or at Paris. Then returned to Decatur. 

Hope this helps I am sure more people on here could fill in the blanks way better than me.

Randy Allard

Thanks randy. Yes, already in the plans to check out the DRIE. Thanks for the dope onthe other 3.
Fred

The few times I’ve caught the Eastern Illinois, it has always been at the interchange with CN at Neoga, IL. There’s a siding south of town where this occurs.

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Fred, 
Vandalia RR has no active customers just car storage, as Randy said the locomotive is parked in town near the CSX mainline.
 
 Decatur Junction runs from Decatur to end of track at Assumption, IL, Roads follow the tracks closely. Power is 3 fairly clean Pioneer Lines painted Geeps.
 
 Eastern Illinois main customer is a large grain elevator at Metcalf, IL believe its ADM, like Randy said power can sometimes be found at Neoga, IL the CN interchange. Power is two leased GP38's and 2 older EIRC GP9/10.
                                                                      Mark Mautner

Thanks guys, really appreciate all your input.
Fred

Fred Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Later this week will be railfanning in the area
> and wanted to check out the Vandalia RR, the
> Decatur Jct RR and the Eastern Illinois
> RR.Appreciate any & all info regarding their
> operations.
> Thanks, Fred

Decatur Junction doesn't run often. Mainly just for car storage shuffles and when a grain train needs moved from Assumption or Mowequa. The power is normally parked either in one of the previously mentioned towns, or in Macon.
Also to note; Pioneer lost control of the north end of the line (Decatur to Cisco). Currently, Omnitrax operates that segment and has two ex-UP geeps parked on the north side of Decatur on a spur by I-72 and Route 48. They only serve the grain elevator in Cisco, so movements are scarce.

The DREI (Decatur & Eastern IL RR) operations are based out of Paris, IL. Road train 101 runs daily from Paris to Decatur and back on weekdays (lately, the train has been coming into decatur late morning and leaving by mid afternoon back east). Weekends, normally 1 direction each day. Normal schedule is the train leaves Decatur headed back East Sunday morning around 8am. If you are in Decatur, they also make daily interchange trips to the ADM Yard with the SD40-2. I think these normally happen sometime in the morning. If you end up in Tuscola, they have a Tuscola job that works every weekday. You might get lucky and catch that if you're there at the right time.

A bit north of Tuscola at Tolono you can catch the NS crossing the CN, if that's of any interest. Not sure what traffic levels are on the NS Lafayette Sub, but should be more than the UP in Tuscola.
Hope this helps,
   -Caleb

Thank you VERY much for all this info. Will be down there this fri & again on monday if the weather cooperates.