The late-spring sun baths the Illinois landscape as westbound Chicago (Corwith), IL to Stockton, CA doublestack train Q-CHISTO6 12L begins its climb up Edelstein Hill as it works its way around Houlihan's Curve on the outskirts of Chillicothe. As hard as it is to believe, this is actually, for the most part, a pretty good consist for a Chillicothe Sub intermodal train: A couple of H2 Dash 9s and an NS SD70M-2, minus the GEVO. Houlihan's Curve sits at milepost 133 on BNSF's Chicago - Ft. Madison, IA Chillicothe Subdivision and marks the beginning of a 1.1% climb for westbound trains out of the Illinois River Valley.
