Chasing the KBS Railroad on old NYC and MILW rails

[@TylersNeighborhoodGarage]

Great video. For those who might enjoy some historical context, the line they are on from Iroquois south through Sheldon and Raub, IL is the ex-"Big Four" line from Kankakee to Cincinnati. You would imagine that it was a forgotten branchline, but in reality this was a high-speed, double-track, heavy-duty(for the 1950's), signaled main line with a lot of passenger traffic and only moderate freight business. This is the line that hosted the James Whitcomb Riley from it's inception through to Amtrak, who finally had to reroute it in the early '70's because Penn Central wouldn't maintain it. There are numerous stories of riding the Riley in those days and bouncing all over the place on the rough track. KBS deserves all the credit for rescuing this line in 1977. Conrail was intent on ripping it up, and did rip up part of it further south. There's a picture taken at Templeton in early '77 and this line was in rough shape. Shortline operations are pretty barren these days so all the signals, towers, some stations, code line, ABS, and most everything else is gone, but at least the trains still roll. What's crazy is that there's almost a 100% certainty that those ex-NYC GP40's ran this route at least once.

[@itsjakefromstatefarm5135]

you need a wind sock on mic

[@Jfrmr1]

Am recording on iPhone. When I’m monetized I’ll have nicer equipment

[@carlvitko1355]

What highways were you on?

[@Jfrmr1]

best thing to do is use the KBS site page for viewing the railroad stations, then cross reference google maps. Many of the stations are not actual towns.