Iowa Interstate's Peoria Rocket trundles past the restored Rock Island depot, home to the Chillicothe Historical Society in Chillicothe, Illinois. Hard to imagine this scene 35 years ago, when pas... (more)

The Chillicothe Fire Department will be practicing extrication with this classic Camaro, as another classic passes with the Peoria Rocket on Friday the 13th. STEVE SMEDLEY PHOTO

An interesting mix of power on this BNSF westbound manifest train.

A Santa Fe Chicago-KC manifest passes the high-wide detector westbound in the Illinois River valley. In a minute it'll wrap around Houlihan's Curve and climb out of the valley at Edelstein.

This ex-ATSF Dash9 still proudly displays the Warbonnet scheme as it leads another intermodal train across the Transcon.

BNSF 5475 races past the Chillicothe depot on a beautiful Summer day.

Another visitor to the BNSF Transcon.

A westbound pig train snakes through the S curve and under the signal bridges west of Chillicothe on a summer evening.

As this train was approaching the curve, I kept hearing it toot it's horn and didn't understand the distraction, until it and the helecopter came around the corner.

Judging by the appearance of this consist, the power planner for this train must have been a University of Illinois fan.

There are still some warbonnets out there in decent paint!

I was surprised when BNSF pulled this empty ethanol train out of Chillicothe with a single unit to head right up the 1% grade of Edelstein Hill. Here the train starts it run up the Hill at Houlih... (more)

It's kind of rare on the Chilli Sub for a locomotive to run long-end-forward, but that's exactly how they are running this 30 car ballast train.

The Peoria Rocket approaches the beatifully restored ex-Rock Island station at Chillicothe.

And then a nice surprise came around the bend.