Hammond, Indiana area trains - October 31, 1986

[@tommythomason6187]

Just, personally, a great era for me. The 80s were rockin'! Look at those vehicles; Toyota Tercel hatchback, Chrysler Lebaron, what looked like a GM Grand Prix, etc... A red Burlington Route boxcar, and a plethora of different railroads (Chessie System - yay!) and their colorful paint schemes. That little Amtrak Lake Cities doesn't compare to the robust Erie Lackawanna version, even in it's final years. Sometimes it'd have three, or four, E8 diesels on it's way to Chicago, and matching cars. This is a great timepiece.

[@Steven_Williams]

Thanks for the memories!

[@LotusbandicootRR]

Around 7:10... hearing both the new cast and old cast P5s at the same time is pretty cool. Getting to see that bridge lower and lift was great too

[@KG-xt4oq]

Wow, this footage is pure gold! Thanks for sharing. So many different loco types and liveries...fantastic stuff!

[@wmuzeke]

Thanks!

[@admydragon]

Trick or treat!

[@scottsmith7051]

The good 'ol days...when NS stayed ON the rails..

[@NJW1973]

You need to come back to IN and visit all the areas again. Including Wellsboro, Walkerton and Milford. The areas look very different. You should see Hohman Ave. in Hammond now, New South Shore extension to Dyer being constructed with bridge going over everything.....

[@garysprandel1817]

About that time was when my railfanning buddies and I discovered Homann Ave. Truly wish i could have seen it in it's glory days but still cut back to Conrail,Harbor and NW it was still an anachronism with flagmen and steam era pneumaticly controlled manual gates that finally took just building an overpass to update

[@TheQuietStormKing]

WOW! This is some killer stuff, and for '86 incredibly crisp VHS (i'm assuming) quality.

[@wmuzeke]

Thanks! It was filmed on a Sony Betamovie camera (BMC-110) - transferred once to VHS, then to digital thereafter.

[@kkuehne45]

First train hasn’t even passed and I already like it.

[@josephmartino9958]

All this railroad stuff goes on...almost invisible, keeping us alive

[@bobbybrisk643]

Im thankful for these, I recall some of the shots used in The F40 series such as 346,369 and 344.

[@mikeyhowell5449]

Is there any videos C&O railroad working out of Peru, Indiana yards

[@wmuzeke]

I don't have any, but be sure to check the Nelson Railroad Videos channel on YT. There are some shots of Chessie & Amtrak in Peru, as well as a lot of footage in the Marion, IN area in the late 60s, 70s, & 80s.

[@cbalducc]

Thank you. From the days when railroads took care of their freight cars.

[@StormySkyRailProductions]

Man, lots of Great stuff in this one! Nice one! (Dave).

[@wmuzeke]

Much appreciated!

[@Belleville197]

They already had caboosless train by 1986?

[@wmuzeke]

Oh yeah definitely. And it started before that. In 1985 Conrail and others started eliminating cabooses.

[@Belleville197]

@@wmuzeke too bad

[@HOTRAILProductions]

Awesome! Was the B&O bridge still being used?

[@wmuzeke]

It was out of service. The tracks were already removed on both sides and CSX used the Conrail bridge to access the B&OCT.

[@WillGrimm623]

So obviously the C&WI was nearly all gone by then, but does anyone know the history of what happened to it after Dearborn station in Chicago closed. I know that MP got the Dolton Branch, but was there any C&WI independent operation, or was it just a shared trackage for the co-owners (I.e. when did C&WI painted engines disappear, when did it really become a paper railroad?) with state line being the Eastern end

[@wmuzeke]

When Dearborn Station closed in 1971, it was not the end of the C&WI through here. Erie Lackawanna, L&N, and the C&O continued using it for freights. The C&WI had their own yard at 47th St., but had already gotten rid of their own locomotives (the RS-1s). In John Szwajkart's Train Watcher's Guide to Chicago he mentions that the C&WI locomotives were already gone in the guide's 1976 edition. Passenger trains would return through State Line in a few more years. After the FRA declared the Penn Central/NYC routing to Lafayette unsafe, Amtrak routed the James Whitcomb Riley through here on the C&WI/C&O in August 1974. The Floridian was also switched to the C&WI around the same time because of a similar issue with Penn Central tracks on the Pennsy route through Logansport. The Floridian stayed on the C&WI/Monon route through State Line until it was discontinued in 1979. The creation of Conrail in 1976 took out the Erie Lackawanna, which significantly dropped traffic on the C&WI to Pullman Jct. This resulted in the Riley coming off the C&WI/C&O because the EL owned half of the right-of-way from Hammond to Griffith. The Riley switched to the B&O routing through Wellsboro/La Crosse, IN and the C&O was abandoned from State Line to La Crosse. Once the L&N (Monon) was abandoned north of Hohman Ave., that was pretty much the end of the C&WI between here and Pullman Jct. The western branch to Dolton faired better, as you mentioned.

[@WillGrimm623]

@@wmuzeke it’s a fascinating part of railroad history for sure. So by the 80’s it was all but a paper railroad. When did the N&W take control of the part through Hammond. If I recall, they were each other but in Chicago the N&W abandoned their own tracks and took the C&WI ones in the 90’s. Also, before the Monon was abandoned, but after the EL was abandoned, had the L&N taken control or was the C&WI still independent

[@wmuzeke]

@@WillGrimm623 The NW/NKP line stayed right where it was in Hammond after the C&WI's demise. The Wabash used the C&WI from State Line. After NW took over the Wabash, they abandoned most of its line across northern Indiana in the early to mid-1980s. The Wabash line came in from Pine Jct. via the B&OCT (the wye to the C&WI went around the north side of the tower). L&N wasn't too interested in C&WI because they already had the C&EI route for Chicago access before they took over the Monon. This photo shows that the C&WI was still a usable line at State Line in 1983 - flic.kr/p/2n8txdr Amtrak and Conrail were detouring over it on this day using the former Wabash connection off the B&OCT. Here is another photo on the same day - flic.kr/p/2n8nr81. You can see the C&WI tracks are gone until just west of the tower (where the Conrail TV train is). I could spend hours looking at his photos. Anyway, I believe 1994 was the last year C&WI actually existed on paper.

[@HOTRAILProductions]

Do you have any footage of Clarke?

[@wmuzeke]

I have no footage there, unfortunately.