Hello everyone. On Sunday, October 20th, I took a railfanning trip with my fellow railfan and YouTuber Cincy Railfan Productions on a railfan trip across various railfanning hotspots of the Midwest. We started our trip with an afternoon railfanning session in the legendary railroad town of Galesburg, Illinois. For over 100 years, Galesburg has been one of the busiest railroad towns in the United States since the days of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy and the Sante Fe. Since the early days of Galesburg, the town has consistently seen dozens of trains per day, and today sees close to 80 trains per day, all primarily from BNSF.
Here in Galesburg, there are two great locations to view the trains. The first is Peck Park, a Public Municipal Park located near the center of town. Peck Park features the crossing of the three busiest BNSF mainlines in Galesburg; the Chillicothe Subdivision from Chicago to Fort Madison, Iowa, the Mendota Subdivision to Aurora and Chicago, and the Barstow Subdivision to the Quad Cities. Cincy Railfan Productions and I started our afternoon of railfanning here in Peck Park, and saw a good number of trains here. The first catch was pleasant surprise with an Executive SD70MAC, an ex-BN MAC. This was my first time seeing an Executive MAC in a couple of years, as they are sadly not as prevalent these days and are mainly used on BNSF coal trains. After the coal train, we saw some of the typical action on each of the subdivisions. The Chilicothe Subdivision featured the typical Z-trains and other intermodals, while the Mendota Subdivision featured another coal train and switching action out of the main yard. For those who do not know, the Mendota Subdivision is where Dash 9's on switching duties take manifest cars onto the mainline before backing down into the yard for classification.
Just shortly after lunch, we got our two great catches of the day; a BNSF Warbonnet leading a westbound manifest train on the Chilicothe Subdivision and ATSF Warbonnet 692 performing switching work on the Mendota Subdivisions. A rather fun fact about modern Galesburg is the yard is now a haven for the remaining true ATSF Warbonnets on the BNSF system. The remaining Warbonnets in service mainly perform switching duties and local service around Galesburg, and while this is a far cry from leading intermodal trains like they were first built to do, it is amazing to still see these iconic locomotives in service. After we caught sight to ATSF 692, we headed on up to the Galesburg Depot to film it.
The Galesburg Depot is the second great location to film trains from, especially for filming Amtrak trains. Each day, a number of Amtrak trains, both long-distance trains to California and regional trains from Chicago, stop in Galesburg. The two long-distance trains are the California Zephyr and the Southwest Chief. We first came to the station before lunch to film the eastbound California Zephyr, and came back to film ATSF 692 backing down into the Galesburg Yard. Amazingly, as soon as 692 cleared the main line, BNSF sent a wave of trains off of the Mendota and Barstow Subdivisions past the Galesburg Depot. The first train to pass in this afternoon rush was a westbound autorack, and afterwards a handful of BNSF manifest trains. Interestingly, the second BNSF manifest out of the yard featured all-NS power, including an NS Dash 9. The remaining manifest trains featured typical BNSF power, though the trains did feature rare fallen-flag rolling stock, including Burlington Northern covered hoppers, ATSF hopper cars, a Montana Rail Link boxcar, and even a Cotton Belt covered hopper! Galesburg is certainly a terrific place to catch fallen flag rolling stock a plenty given how many trains pass through each day.
To finish off this wonderful afternoon of railfanning, we caught the two westbound Amtrak trains and saw ATSF 692 do switching work on its second line of cars on the day. The two westbound long-distance Amtrak trains always come in the late-afternoon to evening, and we were fortunate to catch them with golden-hour lighting effects from the evening sun. The evening sun created great lighting effects for the Warbonnet working the yard and we got possibly the best footage of the afternoon with 692 working alongside the westbound Southwest Chief in a scene that reminisces of the glory days of Galesburg. For my first time back in Galesburg in over four years, it was a terrific and memorable day to return to this legendary location. Be on the lookout for other videos later this week and the next from my Autumn Midwest Adventure.
Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy the video!
-N&W475.
