I was wondering if anyone could give me some info on finding some of the smaller regional railroads that operate in the Chicago area for photography purposes. I post on www.rrpicturesarchives.net and I have captured IAIS, DME, ICE, WSOR, CRL, CSL, and other shortlines and regionals but they have come few and far between. I know that Iowa Interstate frequently operates in Blue Island on the ex-Rock Island main and that’s where I usually shoot them so finding IAIS is not a problem. I have shot DME, ICE and WSOR on the BRC, but it was more luck than anything that I caught them. My DME shots came on a random trip to Hawthorne Junction near 31st and Kostner while I was shooting the BNSF in Berwyn and happened to catch a 4 unit consist heading north on the BRC. I’ve also caught DME and ICE units idling at Clearing Yard. I also shot some WSOR units sitting at Clearing, and last Saturday after I left my cousin’s bday party, I saw a WSOR train on the BRC near Archer and Laramie but I didn’t have my camera with me. My question is, does anyone know what days and what times the DME, ICE and WSOR operate their trains into Clearing? I usually stay around the SW Side and I know that the three companies use two different Metra lines to access the area and connect with the BRC at Cragin so I would probably try to catch them at the 55th Street Crossing or at the Harlem Ave Wye at the west end of Clearing. Also, are there any smaller regional railroads that I might be able to shoot that maybe run on the IHB or BRC besides the IAIS? I know CRL usually hangs around Vermont Street in Blue Island and I have seen CSL on the CSX line at the Hammond-Whiting Amtrak station but am I missing anything? I guess I need more variety than the usual BNSF/UP/CSX shots. Thanks in advance for any info!
You are on the right track, so to speak. Your best bet will be to hang around the west end of BRC’s Clearing Yard toward sunset. The WSOR runs daily into and out of there. The eastbound JC (Janesville to Chicago) train comes out of Wisconsin in the evening and rolls down the CP after midnight. They should be tied up in Clearing by sunrise. The outbound CJ train is ordered out of Clearing around 7 pm and I’ve seen pictures by others of them coming out right about sunset on these longest days of the year. He usually meets the JC on the CP double track south of Rondout Tower. There also are some extra WSOR trains too–sometimes CSX coal trains.
As for the IC&E, they run two trains a day, each way into Clearing. The M-CCNA train (Chicago, Clearing to Nahant, IA–the Quad Cities) is ordered out of Clearing around 7 p.m., so he’d be an early evening departure out of there. Counterpart M-NACC should be running into Clearing in the early morning hours too. The IC&E also runs a pair of trains off the DM&E called the M-HUCC and M-CCHU (HU is Huron, SD). The westbound CCHU is usually called at Clearing around 5:30 a.m., so you should find him coming out the west end in the morning hours, say 7 a.m. or so. He usually meets his counterpart on the Chicago Sub around Genoa, IL and that means he should be arriving Clearing in the mid-to-late afternoon. This train sometimes needs to get recrewed (the HUCC crew begins at Dubuque, IA around 5 a.m.), so he could be running a bit later. The IC&E also runs unit trains of ethanol from the plant at Charles City, IA into the CSX, but they might bypass Clearing–I don’t quite know how they get to the CSX. Those run about once a week.
So your best bets for the IC&E and WSOR will be either early in the morning or toward the late afternoon/early evening as their trains are departing or arriving at Clearing. Waiting ar
Thanks for the info! It was extremely helpful. I live three miles due south of the west end of Clearing so it should be easy for me to catch these trains. However I usually don’t get home from work until after 7:30 so it would probably have to be on a day off. Did the schedules you referenced mean weekdays or do they include weekends as well?
try joliet, you have the EJ&E yard with two bridges that cross the yard with good views and right down the road you have union station with a lot of traffic
Chicago, Ft Wayne & Eastern delivers into IHB’s Blue Island yard and the power tends to lay over near or underneath the Halsted St. overpass. Power is often CF&E GP38-2’s or odds and ends from other RailAmerica roads, usually relettered & renumbered but not repainted.
Those IC&E trains run seven days a week. I think that the WSOR does as well. So any day should be as good as any other in that respect. Good luck to you.
Yes I’ve caught CF&E units there twice, but how do they get to Blue Island? Do they use the abandoned looking CSX line that runs south of Pine Junction? I believe it’s an ex-Pennsy line?
INRD does make it into Chicago now. It heads north from Terre Haute on trackage rights on CSX (ex-C&EI) to Woodland Junction where it has rights on the joint CSX/UP (also ex-C&EI) line into Chicago to 80th Street, then heading over BRC into Clearing. I don’t know about frequency of operation.
The INRD trains you see with their power are run-through trains bringing back coke loads from the Twin Cities down to their property. These began after the INRD took over the ex-CP, nee-MILW trackage in Indiana about a year ago. They run on the CP main north of Chicago through Milwaukee and up to the Twin Cities. The eastbound loads have an “890” symbol on the CP. Usual power are the ex-Soo Line SD60s but others have seen the INRD red SD40-2s in the “40” series making the trip up through Chicago and Milwaukee lately. These trains seem to run at least once a week, but I don’t think there is any set schedule for them.