Eastern Railroad Discussion > Southbound Southern Style in Spencer on the ISRR

Thanks to a very timely heads up on Facebook, I was able to catch a rare Saturday run of the Indiana Southern Railroad's WL-1 local. This is a very elusive train on a very lightly traveled line between Indianapolis and Worthington, IN, and I've always wanted to catch a train on it but had never been lucky enough. Ever since Indianapolis Power and Light went natural gas, the Indiana Southern's traffic north of Switz City dropped dramatically. Only three customers remain between Indy and Martinsville. Between Martinsville and Switz City, there are no customers. WL-1 is a M-F local that serves these three customers. While they do interchange some with CSX in Indianapolis, their primary interchange is in Oakland City with NS. Once a week, WL-1 will take their train from Indy (or wherever they left it the day before) down to Worthington (about 7 miles north of Switz City) to swap cars with a train that came north from Petersburg via INRD trackage rights. When exactly this move happens varies depending where the train was tied down, but the current standard I found out today is southbound on Wednesday, north on Thursday. The north-end of the railroad shut down due to weather on Monday and Tuesday of this past week, thus the train to Worthington ran today.

Vid) The tracks through downtown Spencer hug the buildings so close in places that you could almost walk out the front door and kiss the train (I don't recommend this, they probably don't taste very nice). I wanted to get a video of this them hugging the buildings, but the sun was in the wrong spot. At the courthouse, the tracks split a side street and a parking lot, then go on to hug the next block of buildings.

1) They certainly don't build tracks this close to buildings anymore like here in Spencer. These are former Pensy tracks.

2) Between Spencer and Worthington, there are hardly any crossings except for a handful in Freedom and a scattering of private roads. The roads also don't really get close enough for photos. However, there are a few spots like this where you can get good shots.

One more set of photos to come.

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3) The engineer gives a friendly wave in Freedom. 3051 is one of a handful of GP40-3s owned by the railroad. Originally built as B&0 GP40 #4024, it went through a series of number changes and paint schemes on ISRR before finally being numbered 3051 and classified as a GP40-3 with upgraded electronics. ISRR purchased 10 of these units from CSX, but a few have been sent off to other G&W Properties

4) It was very cool to see these dynamic-less GP40s running southern style along the way. Here they are near the end of their journey in Worthington.

5) After arriving at the small yard just south of Worthington, the crew dropped the train off on a siding, including 3052 which was headed to the main yard in Petersburg to fix a water leak. They then pulled 3051 up to the yard/crew office to park it for the day. They will likely return north on Monday.

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Appreciate this post. Nice looking downtown in your video. That seems a long way to haul 3 cars.

Posted from Android

Super excellent catch.  Your persistence really paid off.
Excellent photos and video.  LHF definitely Southern style.
Thanks for your posting.
ALLEN

Thanks! Been wanting this shot for many years and I'm super happy I got it!

Posted from Android

P Wrote:
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> Appreciate this post. Nice looking downtown in
> your video. That seems a long way to haul 3
> cars.
>
> Posted from Android

Thanks! The cars have to get to NS somehow :)