Heritage, Detours, RoadRailer and a rare lashup - Butler, Indiana

[David Collins]

https://youtu.be/RIDwdXhKDMc?si=a3ND3aRevdzLQpsE

Some clips from an all nighter in Butler, Indiana I undertook a few days ago (Friday into Saturday) with a friend of mine. The derailment in Adrian made things really interesting along with some other noteworthy catches.

0:00

The first noteworthy catch was NS 121 (Detroit-Decatur, Illinois) running on the chicagoline and turning on the connection track to the Huntington district, we see the 121 just getting up to speed after taking the turn with it’s normal traffic.


2:19

Another detour was NS 359, which normally takes the Wabash line to Butler, then turns west toward Elkhart, and passes through town at around 20mph. That day he was running at a pretty good clip since, like 121 did, he ran the Conrail Detroit line down to Toledo, then turned west.

4:57

A train that I was REALLY hoping to see, NS 256, the TripleCrown RoadRailer showed up in Butler shortly after 359. Since they had opened up a single track on the Wabash line, the 256 breezed right through, with a laughably short train (under 1300’) and a solo DC GEVO up front. I’m trying to shoot these veteran DC powered GE’s as they start to age, and as NS is starting to put some in storage.

6:05

NS 25G was next up into town with NS’ Conrail heritage unit trailing, the leader had a Dash 8 steel bell interestingly enough.

9:11

Definitely the catch of the outing, NS 11K. The leader was just a normal AC44C6M (with a K5LLA horn), but trailing was NS 4003 (one od the DC to AC shadowbonnets) and, impressively, one of NS’ rare SD45 carbody locomotives. It is super rare for these to run outside the states of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, as they are held captive in CSAO operations out there. How this unit made it all the way to Elkhart (it stayed on the train until Elkhart) is beyond me, I’m pretty sure it’s long gone now.

There was also a mid dpu, this train was 13,000 feet long. I transitioned to filming from my phone since my camera was running out of battery.


13:46

NS L87 was next in the parade returning from Montpelier. With one of NS’ elusive SD60E’s in the lead (these are held captive in the south and in the eastern US on locals), and an SD40E trailing. The 40E was picked up in Montpelier and was being brought back to Fort Wayne probably for maintenance.

These videos are apart of a much bigger video coming, but this was a top tier outing, for sure.

[lakeshoredave]

Awesome videos. The NS Chicago Line is where the action is really at!