A Busy Afternoon of Railfanning in Elkhart, Indiana, on the Norfolk Southern Chicago Line. 3/1/2024.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the newest railfanning location for this channel; Elkhart, Indiana! On the first day of March, I ventured on up to the legendary railroad town of Elkhart, Indiana, for a full weekend of railfanning in the historic railroad town. Located in Northern Indiana just east of South Bend, Elkhart is one of the best places to railfan in all of America as it is home of one of the busiest hump yards in the railroad industry and the town is home to one of the busiest railroad lines; the iconic Chicago Line. Through Elkhart, the Norfolk Southern Chicago Line features over 70 trains a day and is perhaps the busiest location along Norfolk Southern's busiest route in their entire railway system.

On this first day of a three-day railfanning weekend, I met up with my friend and fellow YouTuber Cincy Railfan Productions who made the surprise decision to also travel to Elkhart for this day of seeing the trains. It was his first time visiting Elkhart in over two years and was a big influence in my decision to visit Elkhart myself. For a first day of railfanning in a new location, I was pretty impressed with the action on display, and appreciated the variety of action between the intermodal action, the manifest trains entering and exiting the yard, and even some foreign power passing through.

The action on the day began with a pair of manifest trains, one beginning its journey heading east and the other ending its journey heading west into the yard. The premier feature of Elkhart, thanks to the presence of the bustling Elkhart Hump Yard, is the vast number of manifest trains and their consists. The first train featured the awesome sight of a Wells Fargo SD70MAC (aka, a Warren Buffet Unit) trailing second. These ex-BNSF SD70MACs have slowly but surely made their presence known on the Norfolk Southern system and are of course a welcome sight. The first westbound train featured a disappearing sight of a Dash 9 one-unit wonder, a sight that will sadly be gone in the next year or so.

Following some switching work from a train with a pair of GEs, the next few trains of the afternoon were a most interesting variety; two westbound intermodal trains, westbound autorack 359 from Detroit, an eastbound empty coal train, and a Canadian Pacific-Kansas City eastbound manifest. A fun fact about Elkhart and the Chicago Line: CPKC runs about 10 trains via trackage rights on NS between Detroit and Chicago. Believe it or not, CPKC does not own its own mainline between the two cities and thus must rely on trackage rights on Norfolk Southern.

As the afternoon progressed, the action got even better. Around 3 p.m., we saw 3 trains in a span of 15 minutes; a westbound intermodal, an eastbound coal train featuring a Dash 9 leader, and an eastbound manifest featuring the second Wells Fargo SD70MAC of the day. After the manifest train, the first catch of the day came in the form of an eastbound intermodal with a horn-happy train crew. The train crew gave us two "Shave and a Haircut" horn salutes, and best part of the catch was it featured another Dash 9 leader, the third Dash 9 leader of the day.

About an hour later, an even better catch of the day came by with an eastbound manifest train featuring two Burlington Northern Green covered hoppers and a Santa Fe covered hopper. The Burlington Northern covered hoppers are sadly another sight that is slowly disappearing from the rails and is no longer commonplace as it was ten years ago, but is nevertheless always a welcome one. The Santa Fe hopper was the more amazing catch of the two as they are rather rare outside of BNSF rails. After this manifest train passed the local train with a GP60 and a caboose came back from working the Elkhart-to-Goshen local. The local train heads out every weekday morning and comes back each late afternoon, and typically features the old red caboose. This would unfortunately be the only time I would end up seeing the local train as it does not run on weekends.

The day concluded with a parade of four westbound trains; three intermodal including train 267 with BNSF power and a westbound grain train featuring the fifth Dash 9 locomotive on the day. Overall, this day of railfanning was a successful one with 19 trains in a period of 6 hours and a great variety of motive power; two WFRX SD70MACs, five Dash 9s, and a decent amount of foreign power. For my first time visiting this location, Elkhart did not disappoint and I am more than pleased with the decision to visit this great railfanning hotspot. Be on the lookout for my next two videos of my weekend in Elkhart, as the action only got better over the next two days of railfanning here.

As always, thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy the video!

-N&W475.