So I headed out about 2, having gotten a chance to eat lunch and hang out with some friends I don't see that much, having a good three hours or so until dark. I started out by heading east across Old US 20 toward Elkhart.
First, I went to the Elkhart & Western. Nothing was moving, as I found out when I got to the place where they park their locomotives (I like to call it the E&W compound). I took some pictures of the locomotives, including a shot of the long hood end of the 911) better ones than I'd gotten a while back with my video camera. No one was around, but the 1000 was locked inside the gated compound while the 911 was on the next track over. At least one of the locomotives was idling, and if I get a chance later, I'll try to get a video clip I shot there complete with the sound of the idling locomotive. Since I'm not exactly sure what would constitute trespassing, I didn't leave the parking lot, so most of my photos have some degree of clutter in them, they're mainly of the quality a person might use to examine detail for a modleing project, than anything that would win any kind of a modeling contest.
From the E&W I went over to the Amtrak depot area. Nothing was moving on the east end of the yard, except one guy who appeared to be working on one of the crossovers or something a short distance from the station. He had one of their pickup truck maintainence vehicles, so I'm pretty sure he wasn't up to anything wrong. I didn't take his picture though, as I didn't know why I'd want a shot of someone performing maintainance that I couldn't see well enough to have enough of an idea as to what was going on for future reference. But with every eastbound signal that I could see showing red, I didn't think I really wanted to hang out at that end of the yard, and I know in the past I've seen a lot of stuff moving in and out of the west end of the yard while the east end was dead, so I headed out there. Seems they were performing rather organized maintainence today, as I saw a couple other maintainence trucks on the outside tracks throughout the yard as I drove west. I did see the 9751 and 9652 on the point of an eastbound double stack train sitting at the fuel pad.
And on the west end of the yard another train was leaving. After going through the 4 way stoplight hassle at Ash Road (I think), I found a decent spot to wait for him before he got to South Bend. Couldn't get my video camera to work for that one though, as it turned out somehow it'd gotten turned off without my having realized it. There were some interesting cars in that train's consist, especially about 5 flat cars lettered 'Southern' in the 623** series. After watching that train disappear and sitting a few more minutes getting ready to take off again, I followed the tracks on into and through Mishawaka, seeing nothing at all. Went all the way into downtown South Bend, intending to check out the neighborhood around the east end of the GTW/NYC joint line in town there. A guy I ran into a while back, while railfanning at the Elkhart Amtrak station, told me how to get fairly close to the action there. Of course, as luck would have it, I managed to misplace those directions (and I'm not convinced that its exactly legal to be up where he gave me directions to anyway). But while trying to find the junction while on the main streets, I went too far and had to turn around. The easiest way I could think of was to use US31 and just go around the block (or three of 'em as I missed the first two cross streets). Just before I was able to turn back onto Sample St. (off of NB US31), over the railroad bridge a few blocks ahead, sailed a green and black locomotive of obvious BN heritage, followed by a BNSF pumpkin. Being rather thirsty to see a train pass by (which was the purpose my afternoon had taken) I followed it far enough to know that it had gone up the CN headed toward Michigan, and eventually the Detroit area or Port Huron (or Battle Creek, which is really where it almost had to have gone first anyway). Since I had no idea if anything was gonna start moving on the NS very soon, I decided to try to catch that train in Edwardsburg, where I knew I could park and get a halfway decent shot of it passing through town. So I headed up State Road 23, which pretty much runs from downtown South Bend all the way to the state line between Granger and Edwardsburg. By the time I made it through traffic, I managed to see the tail end of a westbound through the trees and the lumber place/factories on the south end of Edwardsburg. I almost wish I'd been able to catch that one in Granger, but being in Indiana, I wasn't taking chances with having my scanner out and running (at least not today), so I had no idea one was headed my way. Oh well, I did manage to finally catch up with the eastbound about 5 miles north of Edwardsburg, where I think they'd stopped for a red signal. I pulled up to the grade crossing they'd stopped just south of, just as the lead locomotive passed through the crossing. Not having enough time to do more than set up my tripod and video camera on the front seat of the car (after I'd stopped, which is why that particular clip really sucks- the first half or so was shot through my not-so-clean windshield), I managed to get out of the car in time to get this shot of the power:
Since I was already out in the middle of nowhere, I decided to go ahead and chase him up to Cassopolis, hoping for another westbound in the process. No such luck. I got to Cassopolis about the same time he did, but there was already a line of traffic stopped at the grade crossing. So I took the only side street in sight, hoping to cut around town and catch him on the east side of town. Unfortunately, that road led me into a thicket of roads and homes on the shore of Diamond lake. After I managed to find a route out of there that went north, but came out on the west side of town, I could see the last cars of the train going through the crossing. So instead of catching him on the east side of Cassopolis, I headed to the place I had earlier decided would be as far north/east as I would go for the day, and managed to beat them to Penn by about a full minute. Just enough time to get the car parked in a church parking lot on the north side of the tracks, both cameras out and the video camera turned on. Got this clip there:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/27949
After the train passed, although it seemed to be slowing down toward the end, I couldn't see anything else coming, nor did I hear anything on the scanner, so I decided that it was as good a time as any to head back toward school (besides, I had a 6:30 class, and wanted to eat dinner first). Taking roads that I figured wouldn't be very congested, along with a slight detour into downtown Edwardsburg because I missed a turn north of town, I was surprised that it took me the better part of an hour (45-55 minutes) to get back to school. Didn't see anything at all the whole way back, despite crossing the CN main several times south of Granger. The signals were all dark, and the tracks were (obviously) empty. So, it was an interesting way to spend an afternoon, but I think my two hours that I got to spend on Saturday was far more productive than the almost three and a half I spent today.
Note: I don't know what train I chased, based on a report on one of the Michigan boards, which compared to the time of sightings, probably makes sense, it could have been the 396, but when they mentioned the number over the radio, my scanner wasn't getting the feed too well, so I never did figure out which train it was.
Also, in case anyone's still reading this report: Does anyone know what a Q14 would be? I did pick up the NS road frequency after I crossed the state line into Michigan, and heard someone talking about a Q14 (or maybe a 14Q?) following a 38? something and having the same conditions or speed restrictions or something. I'm assuming that they were talking about the line through downtown South Bend, since I've picked up CN crews on the scanner talking to the NS Chicago East dispatcher around here before.
