On June 29, 2015, Scott K and I, along with a crew from K-10, were at the Rochelle Railroad Park in Rochelle, IL for day two of our Northern Illinois railfanning weekend. Rochelle is the location where BNSF Ry.'s ex-BN (nee-CB&Q) Aurora Subdivision and Union Pacific's ex-CN&W Geneva Subdivision cross at a pair of double diamonds just west of a nice park the city has constructed for railfans. It is a great area with 80+ trains a day and I would highly recommend stopping by if you are in the area.
Scott K's channel: / @scottk9806
Notes:
Soon after we arrived in Rochelle, we caught an empty crude oil train heading west on the BNSF line with three units for power, CSX ES44AC #915, BNSF SD70ACe #9268, and BNSF C44-9W #4486 (0:00).
The next train we would see was another BNSF westbound, this one a unit auto train, with BNSF AC4400CW #5671 and CSX ES40DC #5349 for power (2:48).
A few minutes after the BNSF train cleared, we heard a horn reminiscent of a Leslie RS3L, which turned out to be UP AC4460CW #7047's K3HL. The #7047 was leading two other UP units, SD70ACe #8327 and SD70M #4115 on an eastbound manifest (5:31).
Next, another eastbound manifest popped up on the Geneva Sub, with SD70ACe #8664 and ES44AC #7666 leading, and AC4460CW #7306 shoving on the rear as a DPU (7:56).
As we came back from a short lunch break, we decided to pull over and get some shots of BNSF's local switcher in Rochelle, GP39-2 #2759, rebuilt from a Southern GP30 by Burlington Northern in the 1990's (13:58).
After arriving back at the park, we caught yet another eastbound UP train (this one in the rain!), a unit autorack with ES44AC #7972 "on the point" and AC4400CW #6267 as a DPU (14:12).
Then, after the pop-up shower passed, we were back under sunny skies for another UP train, this one a westbound (finally) intermodal with two AC4400CW-CTE's, #6025 and #5603, and SD70ACe #8712 up front, working with another ACe, #3424, which was shoving on the rear (19:06).
Just a few minutes after the intermodal passed, a UP manifest pulled up to the old CN&W style signals on Track #2, holding for another train (22:18), which turned out to be a westbound BNSF intermodal. The BNSF train had fairly standard power for an intermodal, two ES44C4's, #8152 and #6851, C44-9W #4616, and ES44DC #7842 (23:11).
Once the intermodal cleared, the UP engineer throttled up his three engines, UP SD70M's #4435 and #4186, and CSX ES44AH #3079, and gave us a nice hornshow as he passed (25:37).
It was about 20 minutes before we saw our next train, an empty iron ore train westbound on the Aurora Sub, made up of new rotary gondolas and with only two BNSF units up front, ES44AC #6430 and SD70ACe #8490 (29:28).
The next train we saw was a westbound UP intermodal with a whopping six units up front: AC4400CW-CTE's #5895 and #5906, SD70ACe's #8545, #8721, and #8819, and a lone SD70M, #4913 (31:31).
As soon as the rear unit on the intermodal passed out of the camera's view, an eastbound auto train (on the UP, of course) pulled slowly by us, with ES44AC ##7828 leading AC4400CW-CTE #5934 and AC4460CW #6954 (32:25).
About 10 minutes after the meet (and after it started raining), a westbound UP intermodal came flying through with SD70M's #4296 and #4195 leading AC4400CW #6248, still flying the Espee scarlet and grey after 19 years (34:28).
The final train we caught before we had to leave was a very unique train, a CWR (Continuous Welded Rail) train that came slowly westward on the Aurora Sub, with BNSF ES44DC #7507 and BNSF ES44C4 #6742 providing motive power (36:04). As always, I hope you enjoy this video, and like and subscribe for more content like this from MRP!
-Jon