Eastern Railroad Discussion > Wabash on The Wabash (In Almost No Light)

One of Norfolk Southern's busiest lines is the former Wabash route from Detroit to Kansas City and St. Louis. In the center of it all is the smelly town of Decatur, IL where the Decatur Terminal sees over 30 trains come and go per day and is the largest flat yard in North America. And yes, if you visit Decatur you will know what I mean by smelly (you can thank two massive grain processing plants for that). Ironically, NS 1070, the Wabash Heritage Unit, rarely makes an appearance on the line, while common heritage visitors include 8114, 8100, 8105, and 8025. I believe this is all by coincidence, but it's definitely annoying. My luck in catching 1070 on "home" rails is also pretty poor. When it runs it's typically either dark, trailing, or I'm working.

When the OCS made a pit stop in Decatur earlier this month, I was working the night it laid over which was a bit unnerving with a bunch of executives right outside my office, but nonetheless I made an effort to catch them leaving the next morning. I did so successfully, though 1070 was trailing as my bad luck would show. Fun (or not so fun) fact, the anticlimber on GE locomotives sticks out too far for them to couple into the office cars, thus you will never see a GE trailing on the OCS. The next evening, the power would get split up and for once as luck would have it, 1070 led the dead-head move solo. Approaching Decatur, the train appeared to tie down in a siding near Springfield, as there was no room in Decatur to let it or the 8100-led 252 in front of it get through. I gave up as it seemed par for the course for me. I was shocked learn that 3 hours later, they had squeaked into town with barley enough time left before they outlawed (252 had surely outlawed ahead of them in the same siding but must have been rescued). 

With late evening call times out of Decatur, I knew there wouldn't be much light left by the time the trains got moving east again. Fortunately, it happened to be June 20th, the longest day of the year! Even then, by the time 956 passed me, my video camera was struggling to get a clean picture. I'm still very pleased with the results however.

Photos 1-3, 953 loaded with executives races out of Decatur at Wycles Rd. More to come

 

---

---

---

Photos 4-6, after an eternity with light fading fast, 252 finally blasted off out of Decatur with 956 hot on his trail. 

---

---

---

Photos 7-9, The light was basically gone and the camera was struggling, but 956 finally came by at the same crossing I caught 252 at just east of Oakley, IL

---

---

---

And lastly, here's the video of 1070 and a couple photos of train 122 with an apparently wounded 2nd unit that I caught while waiting for the other two. 

---

---

You must be a registered subscriber to watch videos. Join Today!

Pic 6 is a classic!

Very cool shots!

Great shots! Really like #6!  These heritage units can be aggravating to catch. Seems like the stars need to align to catch the ones you really want. ;)