Hammond, Indiana area trains - October 31, 1986

A fairly windy, but sunny day. My dad and I caught a lot of interesting things this day as we hopped around different spots in the area. The impromptu invite into Hick Tower was pretty cool and the Conrail maintainer was explaining to us what he was checking for on the bascules.
State Line Tower
00:00 Westbound NS 6572 and NS 6575. Pretty unique P5 horn. An IHB sneaks behind headed west on the NS transfer track.
01:45 Eastbound CSX (WM 4261, CSX 6375) on the former B&O headed for Garrett.
02:58 Westbound CSX local (CO 1524, Caboose BO 902938) shoves into the NS transfer. A friendly hello from the crew on the caboose. Notice the GATX tank car behind the caboose says Calumet Refining Company.
05:29 Eastbound NS (NS 3267, BM 335, SOU 3243) headed towards Fort Wayne.
07:24 Westbound NS local (NW 8073, NW 224) with old cast P5.
08:40 Westbound NS transfer (SOU 2869) on CSX heads back to their own tracks. Classic Southern P5 horn.
10:07 Westbound South Shore grab shot.
10:21 CSX local heads back east after interchanging with NS.
Hohman Ave. Tower
11:02 Eastbound Conrail on IHB led by CR 1940.
11:49 Eastbound IHB 9215, PB3 shoves eastbound.
12:25 Westbound Conrail (likely ELPR) with CNW 5059 at State Line Rd.
Hammond/Whiting Amtrak Depot
13:22 Amtrak # 352, eastbound Lake Cities (AMTK 346)
14:31 Eastbound Chicago Short Line on B&OCT
Hick Tower
14:57 Eastbound Conrail BNEL (CR 6769)
15:35 Conrail maintainer working on the bascule bridges. The bridge to the right he called “Track 19” and was ex-NYC - used at this time as a controlled siding. An Inland Steel tugboat comes through the canal.
19:17 The same CSX local (CO 1524) we caught at State Line comes through westbound on the Conrail and then switches onto the B&OCT.
21:23 Inland Steel tugboat returns with a barge.
22:31 Inside Hick Tower, Amtrak # 353 comes by with AMTK 369 leading.
23:35 Eastbound Amtrak #40 Broadway Limited with AMTK 344, AMTK 285.
24:25 Some slides from the day, mostly taken by my dad. Music is Dream Escape by The Tides (KZbin Music).

[@Steven_Williams]

Thanks for the memories!

[@admydragon]

Trick or treat!

[@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.

[@zwsplac]

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

[@KG-xt4oq]

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

[@wmuzeke]

Thanks!

[@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.....

[@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.

[@bobbybrisk643]

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

[@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

[@cbalducc]

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

[@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

[@StormySkyRailProductions]

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

[@wmuzeke]

Much appreciated!

[@josephmartino9958]

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

[@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.

[@scottsmith7051]

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

[@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.