Lone Local Loco (2017)

Filmed on October 30, 2017 at 8:20am
In between the big mainline freights, sometimes around 2 miles long, it's always a rare and funny sight to see these local trains.
They travel the route of the old EJ&E, a C shape around Chicago. The Elgin Joliet & Eastern Railroad ran only local trains on this line, only a few times a week, serving some industries north of the city. In 2009 the EJ&E was bought by CN as a way to shave days off their trip by looping around Chicago and the heavy train traffic there. (And the line now sees over 24 trains per day). But that means they also have to keep up the local traffic as well.
And so these small GP38-2's and GP9R's, sometimes pulling few or no cars at all, are an exciting rare catch among the huge mainline freight trains.

[@dsmith9964]

It still has an Illinois Central reporting mark!