Next week I am taking a trip to the railroad park at rochelle. I was just wondering what to expect with train frequency and train speed in thru the diamond. Also are there any good crossings outside of town in rural areas?
thanks,
pat
If you check out the ‘recent images’ aspect of the trains webcam for Rochelle and look at the time in the lower right corner, it seems to me that there’s at least one train every 5-10 minutes. The max. speed across the diamond seems to be around 40 mph.
Depending on how far out of town you want to drive, IL Rt. 38 follows the UP fairly closely both to the east and west. You can take a side road off of rt. 38 and park on the side of the road if you’d like to. If I had to pick a spot, I’d go west of town a few miles to Flagg Center, which is only an elevator located on a dead end road. The road used to cross the tracks until it was closed for the Global III intermodal deal. You’ll see trains moving fairly slow out of the yard there onto the mainline and more than likely a few trains stopped waiting for traffic to clear.
Also on the east side of town south of McDonalds and the Petro truck stop, there is an overpass over the UP tracks. The road is Bement Road I believe. But I don’t remember for sure if there is a sidewalk on the bridge or not, so maybe drive over it beforehand. I do know though, that there is nowhere to park along the road except for McDonalds as the road has curbs 'n gutters.
Have you logged on to the webcam for the park? Watch it for a while & it will give you a fairly good idea of the frequency past the park. When I was there due to several grade crossing on the UPRR east & wast side in comparing it to the Colton CA double diamond the UPRR is moving much more slowly at Rochelle then Colton. On the BNSF side they also have a grade crossing on the south side but they appeared to operate at a faster pace then the UPRR thru the diamodn but again not as fast as at Colton [:p]
The park is a great spot, but I’ve been there 4 times now, but would not say trains come every 5-10 minutes at all. I’ve waited over an hour between trains, but then there are some every few minutes, and on 2 occasions, while Up westbounds (running left handed) block the view, an eastbound comes from behind it, only to be seen between the cars.
You might be aware of this, but there is a railfan and modeling store on the property with a very helpful staff, and a scanner so you don’t miss the action.
thanks guys, I got back from my trip, saw 25 trains in 2 days
good enough for me!