Hello everyone. Today's video features railfanning action on my third and final day of railfanning here in Chesterton, Indiana. I got to say, I did enjoy my railfanning trip here in Chesterton as I got the chance to see a different variety of action along the Norfolk Southern Chicago Line. This day of railfanning was a decent one, as it featured a good variety of foreign power, Amtrak trains, and a good amount of fallen flag cars.
The day started out with a westbound Union Pacific manifest train going trackspeed west to Chicago. After the westbound Amtrak Capitol Limited passed through, Norfolk Southern sent what was probably the best catch of the day with a GP60 Operation Lifesaver unit in an eastbound power move. NS 7140 is one of a handful of Operation Lifesaver locomotives on the Norfolk Southern system, and this power move was headed east towards Elkhart. Next came the Amtrak Lake Shore Limited and a surprising quartet of BNSF trains; first an eastbound intermodal train, an eastbound coal train, a westbound grain train with BNSF and NS power, and a westbound coal train. For those who do not know, BNSF runs quite a handful of trains along the Chicago Line. Notable trains include intermodal 266 and 267 to Columbus via Toledo, a pair of unit trains per day, and a pair of manifest trains to and from Elkhart Yard.
BNSF was not the only foreign-power railroad here in Chesterton; Union Pacific joined in on the action with a westbound manifest train of their own with an SD70ACe pair. Like BNSF, Union Pacific also runs a pair of manifest trains to and from Elkhart Yard as the exchange point between UP yards west of Chicago and for NS traffic east of Chicago. After the Union Pacific manifest, Norfolk Southern finally joined in on the action in the latter portion of the morning. An eastbound local train to Elkhart running longhood forward came on through, followed by the westbound steel express to Gary. Each day, Chesterton sees a number of the steel locals running to and from Gary to Elkhart. Eastbound steel locals typically bring loaded steel coils to Elkhart, while westbound locals going to Gary are typically empty steel cars.
As morning turned to afternoon, Norfolk Southern finally started to bring the action with a handful of intermodal trains while BNSF provided another duo of manifest trains, one in each direction. One interesting note from this day of railfanning was a surprising lower number of intermodal trains. NS intermodal traffic was not as much as it typically is, but today was probably an outlier in terms of traffic as the Chicago Line typically sees 30+ intermodal trains a day. Another good catch of this afternoon was the returning NS steel express with a Dash 9 leader with a Nathan P5 horn. It's pretty awesome to still hear these old Southern Railway horns still in service in the modern era.
I unfortunately left in the middle of the afternoon as I had to return home, and as I said before, this was my final day of my three-day railfanning trip. Still, I greatly enjoyed my time here in Chesterton and my stay at the Riley's Railhouse. Riley's Railhouse is more than worth a stay as I cannot think of a more optimal bed and breakfast to view the trains. The upstairs rooms, in which one of those I stayed in, have a terrific balcony to view the trains from and the quality of this bed and breakfast is second-to-none. Hopefully someday I will get the opportunity to stay here again.
Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy the video!
-N&W475.
