Rochelle, IL: Railroad Park

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Rochelle was one of the first towns to turn railfans into an asset by building the Rochelle Railroad Park at the NX Crossing. In addition to doing some railfanning there, I recorded the park itself. 

On the nice September day during which I visited, there were around a dozen cars in the parking lot including license plates from Alabama and Louisiana. This view of the crossing of the BNSF/CB&Q (tracks with a train) and UP/C&NW is looking west from the train-watching pavilion near the point of the triangle. You can see both the old UP searchlight signals (black bridges) and the new signals ("silver" bridges) that will replace them to implement the federally mandated Positive Train Control.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

I checked out a 1939 aerial photo to determine that the land was probably underutilized before it was transformed into the railroad park.

This view towards the west along the UP tracks shows the train watching pavilion. UP's Global 3 intermodal yard is just a few thousand feet west of here. I was caught by an eastbound intermodal at a railroad crossing on my way to the park. When I arrived at the pavillion, fans explained that they had seen that train switching to the west. That would explain why the train was going so slow and accelerating hard when I saw it at the crossing. I told the fans about Global 3.

During the 40-minutes I was there taking pictures of the place and talking to some of the people, three UP trains (e/b intermodal, e/b coal, w/b coal) and one BNSF train (e/b concentrated iron ore) went by. I noticed that I did not hear the characteristic "pounding" sound when a train crosses a diamond. So I went down closer to the point of the park to get a closeup of the diamond.

They look like ordinary diamonds, not flange-bearing diamonds, so I don't know why they were so quiet. There is a picture in Facebook, but I don't know if it is accessible by people who are not a member of the Railroad Mainenance of Way Photo's Group.

Looking eastish down the UP line we see a couple of smaller pavilions. The closer one is a Lincoln Highway Gazebo that some of the town along the highway have built. The one on the far side of the parking lot covered a model of an engine that the kids could play on. The gift shop and restrooms are also on the other side of the parking lot off to the right.

Note that this westbound train is on the closer (south) track. UP continues the C&NW tradition of left-hand running.

A close up of the play equipment. It was kid tested while I was there.

I took a view looking east along the BNSF tracks to capture their old and new signals as well. The good news is that after BNSF converts to the new signals, they will take down all of the poles because the new signals use a buried fiber-optic cable instead of wires. That will improve shots like this DPU of a concentrated iron ore train.

Close to the gift shop, they have a Whitcomb locomotive on static display --- W.F.Hall Printing Co. 5. (Note that it is easy to get pictures of things with a train in the back ground. In this case, it is the westbound UP coal train before the eastbound UP coal train had arrived.)

Update: this photograph illustrates the difference between a pro's photographs and my pictures.

Paul Krieter posted
This is an aerial view I took from my cousins airplane of the Rochelle Railroad Park.
[Someone evidently committed suicide with a UP train in Mar or Apr 2019. It was visible from the webcam. I wonder if that was deliberate for enhanced drama.]