Rochelle, IL: Railfanning

On my visit to Rochelle Railroad Park, I saw four trains: e/b UP (C&NW) intermodal, e/b BNSF (CB&Q) concentrated iron ore, and while a w/b UP coal train rolled through, an e/b UP coal train came through.

20150913,16 4695

The e/b UP intermodal caught me at the crossing to the park. I didn't catch the engines because I was still parking the van when they rolled through. I spent some time getting pictures of a caboose while the train rolled by. Then I turned my attention to the train itself. I grabbed this shot because you can see the playground pavilion between the cars. DTTX 743984 appears to be a 5-pack. I've noticed I normally see just single and 3-pack cars on the BNSF.

2:21pm

Past the end of the train, you see the train watching pavilion in the park. The Rochelle Railroad Park posting has closeups of the pavilion and the old and new UP signals down by the diamond with BNSF.

Soon after I parked in that park and walked to that pavilion, An e/b BNSF train arrived. Unfortunately, the code poles caught me by surprise, and I did not figure out how to deal with them until the DPU arrived. Fortunately, these poles and wires will be removed when they switch to using the new signals because they are connected by a buried fiber-optic cable. The locomotives are BNSF 8417: SD70ACe, built 2014; 7685: ES44DS, built 2005 and 4596: C44-9W, built 1999.

I took pictures of the gondolas themselves because the higher angle that the pavilion provides allowed me to see how full they fill them. I have seen these iron ore trains before on the BNSF/CB&Q racetrack through Downers Grove, IL, but never from an elevated position so that I could see the loads in the gondolas. One of the things I learned from looking at the loads is that the concentrate is a very fine powder. But there was no dust blowing off the load as it went by.

2:39pm

For completeness, I also got a going away shot. Even after the poles are removed, the racetrack is a better place to railfan the BNSF because Rochelle has you taking pictures from the north so the subject is backlit. And the racetrack has freight trains from the Mendota, as well as this Aurora, subdivision.


Next was a westbound UP coal train with locomotives UP 6554: AC4400CW, built 1997 and 6310: AC4400CW,  built 1995.

2:50pm

This may look like a picture of coal cars, but it is a picture of the arrival of the eastbound coal train because that train is behind the westbound train. This provides visual confirmation that UP continues the C&NW practice of left-hand running.

At camera resolution, it is easy to read that the lead locomotive was 6076.

But the trailing locomotive is a challenge. I read 6383. I'm going to assume they were UP engines. So that would be 6076: AC4400CW, built 2004 and 6383: AC4400CW, built 1995. 6383 is another former-SP unit. I wonder if it also is still in SP paint.

The trains were still rolling at 2:54pm when I took a picture to show that the eastbound is loaded and the westbound is empty, as one would expect with low-sulfur western coal shipments.

But both were UP trains finished passing through while I was taking pictures of the Whitcomb locomotive. This picture was at 3:03pm. I took more pictures of the park until 3:16pm, and there were no more trains during that time.

Eric Royburn posted
On July 23, 1994, PRNPB with CNW 7006,UP 6036,CNW 5056, hammers across the BN diamond in Rochelle, Illinois. Neat lash up of all EMD, which was common in 1994.