A treasure trove of RR information. Thanks to you I also figured out the route that NS runs between KC and Hannibal, MO continues on to Detroit. That would explain the long boxcar trains heading to the Ford plant in KC. You sir have a new subscriber! Excellent videos!
This is an amazing series, I like these types of series. You should definitely keep these up...and if you ever get the chance, you should do one on the "I-5 corridor" (Union Pacific line from Portland, Oregon into Sacramento California), which has some really cool scenery, and some grades. Also, you could try the Portland/Fallbridge subs for BNSF and UP, in the Columbia River Gorge, some fast trains and really cool scenery. Just some ideas. Love the shots in this video.
My Grandma lives in Wawaka. I was there last month and I had my scanner programmed to the NS Chicago line and I get the defect detector of MP 386.3 in Brimfield
I have 2 dvds put out by Greenfrog videos that cover from just west of Butler into Ohio.THe other one covers from Butler all the way into Chicago.Very facinating.Live long way down off the Wabash.Those John Deere tractors were coming from Waterloo.Iowa.i know alot about in the video because of the 2nd GF dvd I have,We get no piggybacks down here
Nice foreign power on this line. I'm seeing a lot of that in your videos and TBH, I like it. I also like your use of language in narration: "This unit was apparently too clean for the camera as it temporarily gets confused on how to focus." That made me laugh and was pretty awesome.
Ha, yeah that line was one of my favorites...and pretty accurate, too! The Sony cameras I've used my entire life have always had exceptional autofocus, but sometimes, it gets a bit confused!
Those are just standard intermodal well cars. "IBC" stands for inter-box connector, which is the hunk of metal used to lock the intermodal containers together when double-stacked. These new cars have those posts for the carmen to set the IBCs in closer to the height at which they are installed at - an ergonomic feature. Most intermodal wells have places for IBCs, but they're just kept in the main carbody.
ALEX, just a technical point. Those empty " trailers " as you call them, for containers, those are actually called " chassis " is the correct term. GREAT video, thanks.
I concur with your point here. But since they can still be hauled around behind a truck without a container, I forward the argument that they can still be considered trailers. I've heard both thrown around in industry parlance.
@@ThornappleRiverRailSeries that's great to hear, I've really enjoyed this camera so far. Great series on the Chicago Line when it had a bunch of trains!
Very nice video. I think you forgot to cover the other portion of the Chicago Line running between Selkirk, New York and Toledo, Ohio. You should cover Berea, Ohio. Berea is located at mileposts 194 on NS' Former Conrail Chicago Line and at milepost 22 on CSX's Cleveland Short line subdivision (the former big four main line between Cleveland and Columbus, the Former Conrail Columbus and Indianapolis Lines
It's just the viewing angle. We're looking pretty much directly down the track instead of from a more side-on angle, so that's why it looks like it does. If you were there in real life it'd look the same.
Alex: When you commence these lengthy TH-cam projects, do you ever consider the possibility, it has already been done before but by someone else? I'm always curious about this. I'm almost positive, the Drayton Blackwell (DIB), or Michigan Central lines has produced a very similar approach and lengthy upload, maybe in 2017 or before. Should this be the case, and surmising, what is already out there, would you consider your contribution a different take on the same material, or possibly an update? You've presented a very complete expose, and I'm happy you were able to correct the audio issue, you had been experiencing with your most previous episodes with voice-over narration.
I generally make my stuff to stand alone. DIB has not, to my knowledge, produced this sort of detailed look. He sure has quite a bit of Chicago Line stuff, but he's tended to do it in patches and not a full going-over. Ditto with Michigan Central Lines...both tend to stay further east. You might actually be thinking of my own video, which covered Goshen to Porter a couple years ago. This project is an expansion/update of that, now obviously covering Butler to Chicago. So I used a bit of the old footage to show "the way it was before", but 90% of it is new footage from 2017/2018. I consider my specialty to be full-line and day-in-the-life train documentaries, to get as far into the actual operations as possible. While strung together runbys can be interesting, I like building a narrative which includes as many facets of the industry as possible, from current operations to capital upgrades and locomotive power. That's the goal, at least!
They're working on it. First priority were the more complex areas running east from Chicago. With Butler to Chicago effectively done now, and Toledo to Cleveland also nearing completion, Toledo to Butler is really on borrowed time now!
Most traffic is east and west due to the shape of the nation, but there are plenty of north-south corridors as well. Another factor is that many railroads only timetabled themselves as east/west, even if they were more north/south. For instance, on the Southern Pacific, going towards Sacramento was always westbound, away always east, even through they had their corridors running up and down the western seaboard.
Why do the headlights of locomotives in North America softly blink alternatingly left right left right? Is this more a traditional thing from former times with steam locomotives? I can imagine that a modern strobing LED such as on emergency vehicles would much better warn traffic of the oncoming train.
Everything until the 1990s generally only had a single headlight. The FRA mandates those lower “ditch lights” about 30 years ago to reduce crossing accidents and improve visibility for the crew. Some railroads do not flash their ditch lights. CSX and NS are the two major roads that do. Amtrak does as well. They slowly flash because they are using incandescent bulbs. New locomotives with LEDs flash at the same frequency but are quicker at turning on and off, of course. A major reason for the lights is it makes it easier to judge speed and distance of approaching trains, as opposed to the single traditional headlight.
I thought the Chicago Line was the former PRR. CSX got mainly NYC trackage from the split. Is this a CSX or NS owned line? I doubt NS has a need for the old NYC as they have their own busy mainline on the old PRR.
The Chicago Line is the former NYC from Albany to Chicago. This became PC and then CR. When CSX and NS split Conrail, the NS got the line west of Cleveland, while the CSX got it east of there. In turn, the NS got the PRR via Pittsburgh, while the CSX got the line via Indianapolis to St Louis. This thus split the “big X” mainline network of Conrail. This happened because CSX did not need another double track line from Northwest Ohio to Chicago, nor one from Northwest Ohio to the East Coast/Baltimore/Philly/DC. They already had the B&O to do that. Likewise, the NS had the Nickel Plate into New York which would suit their needs just fine. Ultimately, the PRR was greatly downgraded after the NYC-PRR merger because Penn Central and later Conrail found the NYC to be superior and a better fit for the combined giant.
@@ThornappleRiverRailSeries Oh yeah, I got it now. Thanks so much. I grew up along the NS main line thru PA which was the old PRR, so I assumed the old PRR main was NS the whole way to Chicago.
how can signals be upgraded? They all mean the same things? some are besides the usual green/yellow and red arespeed restrictions/line junctions and I think no whistle zone.etc. They mean what they mean.
I don't like breaking up these long-form documentaries, though. The greatest barrier to me posting more often is work/life related, not due to video length.
I feel like crying for not seeing the locomotives in Conrail paint scheme over those tracks anymore. Everything looks so dark since the fleet vested the Norfolk Southern paint scheme which is not ugly, but it is not vibrant and inspiring luke Conrail's. 💙🤍
![NS' Chicago Line: A Railroad Superhighway [2015 edition]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WMJM8PRxb7A/mqdefault.jpg)
![ILLSLICK X YOUNGOHM - We're The same [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yUJNkobYR0E/mqdefault.jpg)
Give me a SD 40-2 any day of the week!!!! Love the coverage. Thank you.
You make by far the finest Railfan videos on TH-cam. Good job.
Excellent, just the right length and content. Keep up the good work. These documentaries are much better than ordinary railfanning.
One of the most outstanding series out there, thanks for sharing with us
Awesome railfanning
Greetings from New Hampshire
A treasure trove of RR information. Thanks to you I also figured out the route that NS runs between KC and Hannibal, MO continues on to Detroit. That would explain the long boxcar trains heading to the Ford plant in KC. You sir have a new subscriber! Excellent videos!
Great video. I grew up in Goshen, trains were part of our daily routine!
nice video, waiting for your next series
Excellent videos
I so enjoy your productions. Keep up the good work.
33:14 actually thats the new AC4400CWM rebuild for CP.
All I can say bravo... well done 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
I love your videos. Top tier editing too. Keep up the great work!
Glad you like them!
I have just started and LIKING THIS ALREADY!
Great videos! Glad you went back and fixed the audio from the previous uploads.
Outstanding!!!!! Great job,!!!! Thanks
Like the segment around 31:20 about the new flyover and resulting improvements.
This is an amazing series, I like these types of series. You should definitely keep these up...and if you ever get the chance, you should do one on the "I-5 corridor" (Union Pacific line from Portland, Oregon into Sacramento California), which has some really cool scenery, and some grades. Also, you could try the Portland/Fallbridge subs for BNSF and UP, in the Columbia River Gorge, some fast trains and really cool scenery. Just some ideas. Love the shots in this video.
I love these. I often track the route on google. One day I'll just go to the US just to railfan.
Great video! Love the info! I railfan this line from the Chicago and NW Indiana side often.
Porter-Chicago segment due out Thursday.
My Grandma lives in Wawaka. I was there last month and I had my scanner programmed to the NS Chicago line and I get the defect detector of MP 386.3 in Brimfield
I enjoy the narration
I'd love to see the Indianapolis area rail system 😀
I have 2 dvds put out by Greenfrog videos that cover from just west of Butler into Ohio.THe other one covers from Butler all the way into Chicago.Very facinating.Live long way down off the Wabash.Those John Deere tractors were coming from Waterloo.Iowa.i know alot about in the video because of the 2nd GF dvd I have,We get no piggybacks down here
Nice foreign power on this line. I'm seeing a lot of that in your videos and TBH, I like it.
I also like your use of language in narration:
"This unit was apparently too clean for the camera as it temporarily gets confused on how to focus."
That made me laugh and was pretty awesome.
Ha, yeah that line was one of my favorites...and pretty accurate, too!
The Sony cameras I've used my entire life have always had exceptional autofocus, but sometimes, it gets a bit confused!
5:56 I remember news reports when I was a kid in the '90s about piggyback trailers on trains taking business away from truckers.
I've watched all three, By far the best I have watched. Now if we could get someone out west to do this. :-)
Glad you enjoyed it, Marques!
Very nice.
42:03 omg that was the spot that I railfanned after my 14th birthday!
Wonderful Video!
Very informational’ the commentary is perfect...not too much, not to little.
Try it with CC. Butler is the only at grade railroad prostitute. What is it like to snuggle with a railroad prostitute?
Damn that was a lot of John Deere tractors. Also, at 23:56 what were those cars labeled "IBC" used for?
Those are just standard intermodal well cars. "IBC" stands for inter-box connector, which is the hunk of metal used to lock the intermodal containers together when double-stacked.
These new cars have those posts for the carmen to set the IBCs in closer to the height at which they are installed at - an ergonomic feature. Most intermodal wells have places for IBCs, but they're just kept in the main carbody.
Ah, thanks so much for the knowledge and explanation.
LOVE IT
Unbelievable how busy this line is! How often do you get to railfan the Chicago Line?
nice video
Sd80mac 7212 trailing on the intermold at 47:02
Nice Video!!
The new signals being installed are they LED types
Thanks for the video
8:54 what happened to the snow?
It was filmed over multiple days over the course of over a year
36:07 I didn't know 9322 had a K5LA before. Now it has a K5LLA.
ALEX, just a technical point. Those empty " trailers " as you call them, for containers, those are actually called " chassis " is the correct term. GREAT video, thanks.
I concur with your point here. But since they can still be hauled around behind a truck without a container, I forward the argument that they can still be considered trailers. I've heard both thrown around in industry parlance.
Hey is that Daniel pulling that intermodal from Rails of highland valley
Are you still using the Sony FDR and if so, how is it holding up? I got mine in Feb of 19 and was curious of the longevity.
I got mine in November of 2016 and it’s still with me with no issues whatsoever as my primary.
@@ThornappleRiverRailSeries that's great to hear, I've really enjoyed this camera so far. Great series on the Chicago Line when it had a bunch of trains!
Very nice video. I think you forgot to cover the other portion of the Chicago Line running between Selkirk, New York and Toledo, Ohio. You should cover Berea, Ohio. Berea is located at mileposts 194 on NS' Former Conrail Chicago Line and at milepost 22 on CSX's Cleveland Short line subdivision (the former big four main line between Cleveland and Columbus, the Former Conrail Columbus and Indianapolis Lines
This project was just about the Indiana segment of the line, as I said in the intro.
3:02 what is the name of that horn I like it
That Dash 9 At 7:37 Has No Flashing Ditch Lights
Can you please do an informational video of the NS Chicago District/Fort Wayne line?
Probably not, at least in the near-term.
47:02 that’s an 80MAC!
Really Like Thornapple Productions
Just curious, why does the locomotive and rolling stock look compressed length wise at 45:40?
It's just the viewing angle. We're looking pretty much directly down the track instead of from a more side-on angle, so that's why it looks like it does. If you were there in real life it'd look the same.
Now this is Midwest Railroad Weather.....
Excellent video. Have you graduated yet? Looking forward to 2 & 3.
Rich
Nope just 5 weeks into my 3rd year. Parts 2 and 3 have been published!
8:58 all jb hunts and 40 stacks is a sign that this train was bound for bnsf
If I may ask, what camera equipment do you use. This film is pretty clear, better than 4K
Info in the description
Alex: When you commence these lengthy TH-cam projects, do you ever consider the possibility, it has already been done before but by someone else? I'm always curious about this. I'm almost positive, the Drayton Blackwell (DIB), or Michigan Central lines has produced a very similar approach and lengthy upload, maybe in 2017 or before. Should this be the case, and surmising, what is already out there, would you consider your contribution a different take on the same material, or possibly an update? You've presented a very complete expose, and I'm happy you were able to correct the audio issue, you had been experiencing with your most previous episodes with voice-over narration.
I generally make my stuff to stand alone. DIB has not, to my knowledge, produced this sort of detailed look. He sure has quite a bit of Chicago Line stuff, but he's tended to do it in patches and not a full going-over. Ditto with Michigan Central Lines...both tend to stay further east.
You might actually be thinking of my own video, which covered Goshen to Porter a couple years ago. This project is an expansion/update of that, now obviously covering Butler to Chicago. So I used a bit of the old footage to show "the way it was before", but 90% of it is new footage from 2017/2018.
I consider my specialty to be full-line and day-in-the-life train documentaries, to get as far into the actual operations as possible. While strung together runbys can be interesting, I like building a narrative which includes as many facets of the industry as possible, from current operations to capital upgrades and locomotive power.
That's the goal, at least!
Where do you find the interlocking diagram like at 1:56
I made those myself in Microsoft Paint, referencing the ATCS layout.
Any reason why NS hasn’t upgraded the NYC signals to the PTC-capable Vaders on the east end of CP 358 in Butler?
They're working on it. First priority were the more complex areas running east from Chicago. With Butler to Chicago effectively done now, and Toledo to Cleveland also nearing completion, Toledo to Butler is really on borrowed time now!
Wayside signal types have absolutely nothing to do with PTC. You could have Semaphores with PTC, it's irrelevant to PTC's operation.
In America, are there only ever westbound and southbound trains? What about northbound or southbound?
Most traffic is east and west due to the shape of the nation, but there are plenty of north-south corridors as well. Another factor is that many railroads only timetabled themselves as east/west, even if they were more north/south. For instance, on the Southern Pacific, going towards Sacramento was always westbound, away always east, even through they had their corridors running up and down the western seaboard.
Would it be possible for a 4th part from Cleveland to Butler?
Perhaps someday
Okay
Wow
Why do the headlights of locomotives in North America softly blink alternatingly left right left right? Is this more a traditional thing from former times with steam locomotives? I can imagine that a modern strobing LED such as on emergency vehicles would much better warn traffic of the oncoming train.
Everything until the 1990s generally only had a single headlight. The FRA mandates those lower “ditch lights” about 30 years ago to reduce crossing accidents and improve visibility for the crew.
Some railroads do not flash their ditch lights. CSX and NS are the two major roads that do. Amtrak does as well. They slowly flash because they are using incandescent bulbs. New locomotives with LEDs flash at the same frequency but are quicker at turning on and off, of course.
A major reason for the lights is it makes it easier to judge speed and distance of approaching trains, as opposed to the single traditional headlight.
I thought the Chicago Line was the former PRR. CSX got mainly NYC trackage from the split. Is this a CSX or NS owned line? I doubt NS has a need for the old NYC as they have their own busy mainline on the old PRR.
The Chicago Line is the former NYC from Albany to Chicago. This became PC and then CR. When CSX and NS split Conrail, the NS got the line west of Cleveland, while the CSX got it east of there. In turn, the NS got the PRR via Pittsburgh, while the CSX got the line via Indianapolis to St Louis. This thus split the “big X” mainline network of Conrail.
This happened because CSX did not need another double track line from Northwest Ohio to Chicago, nor one from Northwest Ohio to the East Coast/Baltimore/Philly/DC. They already had the B&O to do that. Likewise, the NS had the Nickel Plate into New York which would suit their needs just fine.
Ultimately, the PRR was greatly downgraded after the NYC-PRR merger because Penn Central and later Conrail found the NYC to be superior and a better fit for the combined giant.
So to sum it up, the Chicago Line is the former NYC. The PRR main across Indiana and most of Ohio is now the CFE.
@@ThornappleRiverRailSeries Oh yeah, I got it now. Thanks so much. I grew up along the NS main line thru PA which was the old PRR, so I assumed the old PRR main was NS the whole way to Chicago.
how can signals be upgraded? They all mean the same things? some are besides the usual green/yellow and red arespeed restrictions/line junctions and I think no whistle zone.etc. They mean what they mean.
Please refer me to a timestamp you're talking about
Was chicago Line former NY central or Penn?
NYC, except what is west of today's CP 506
anton jag älskar norfolf southern
👍
I appreciate your work.... but the ZOOM is wrecking the train shots.
The best locomotive trains NS cichago line from Drs Atmofendi Gondomono Blitar city eastern java Republic of Indonesia country
those signals aren't very bright, seems like it would be hard to see what they read.
They're focused beams, so while you can see them a bit from the side, if you're not directly in line of them they aren't all that bright.
If you limited your video length to 25 minutes or less, then you would have more postings, and posting more often. Food for thought.
I don't like breaking up these long-form documentaries, though. The greatest barrier to me posting more often is work/life related, not due to video length.
I can understand all that. It was just a thought/idea. Your video's still come out great, no matter what.
nice video BUT could you please stop trying to talk over the horns,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,you lose every time.............
First
I feel like crying for not seeing the locomotives in Conrail paint scheme over those tracks anymore. Everything looks so dark since the fleet vested the Norfolk Southern paint scheme which is not ugly, but it is not vibrant and inspiring luke Conrail's. 💙🤍