Railfanning Naperville, IL on 10/16/15, hot action on the BNSF racetrack!

On October 16th, 2015, I got news that Amtrak 90208, an F40PH NPCU (non powered control unit) was to be put on the Southwest Chief and head back out to Southern California, where it is used and kept at for service. The reason it came to Chicago in the first place was to be repainted into the "Honoring our Veteran's" paint scheme at the Beech Grove shops, in Beech Grove, IN. Given that chances are it wouldn't be coming back to Chicago anytime soon, or for who know's how many years, I headed out to Naperville, IL, along the BNSF racetrack to catch it arrive and depart.

Not only was it by itself in transit on the SW Chief, but Amtrak 455, a Surfliner F59PHI was too, making this a much needed train to catch on camera. Interestingly, Amtrak 455 was also under power along with the lead two P42s, Amtrak 132 and 200. When the train left, hearing that 12-710G3A go from idle to run 8 was awesome.

At Chicago Union Station, the California Zephyr leaves at 2pm and the Southwest Chief leaves at 3pm. They arrive at Naperville at 2:35pm, and 3:35pm respectively, 1 hour apart. I got to the station at 2:30pm, shortly before an inbound Metra arrived. I noticed the CZ arriving at the last second, and ran to get a quick video of it by Metra 210, which was the power for the inbound. So after that, I caught everything till the Southwest Chief came, and it was surprisingly busy.

I caught a few more Metra trains, Amtrak's California Zephyr headed to Chicago, and a few freight trains, one of which had a pretty neat consist. The consist was BNSF 8321 an ES44C4 in fresh paint, BNSF 9656 a BN ordered, post merger delivered executive SD70mac, CEFX 1049 AC44, CSX 7527 C40-8 in YN2 paint, and BNSF 4605 C44-9W. I didin't catch the other Southwest Chief because it was pretty late that day.

After the Southwest Chief left, at 3:40pm exactly, I spent another 10 minutes there, which another Metra outbound arrived and departed, and an Eastbound BNSF tabletop train shot past.

For under 1 and a half hours there, I can't complain at all for what I caught, and Ill certainly be heading back there to spend a lot more time. All the catches are in order as I caught them too.

Thanks for watching!