Military Trains

Until late Thursday morning, July 12, I had never been able to capture a rail movement of military equipment.

By Sunday afternoon, I had done so twice.

The first was a movement of Illinois Army National Guard vehicles to Fort Polk, Louisiana. According to a news release on the Illinois National Guard's Facebook page,

About 200 vehicles from the Illinois Army National Guard will load onto rail cars at the Rock Island Arsenal (RIA) July 9-13, as part of a deployment to the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

The Iowa Interstate Railroad, which has access to the rarely-used Rock Island Arsenal trackage, assembled the train and placed on the rear of an already lengthy Blue Island, Illinois to Council Bluffs, Iowa freight, BICB. Union Pacific will handle the train from Council Bluffs to Fort Polk, Louisiana.

I shot video of the 160-car train shortly after it departed the Silvis, Illinois Yard at 1115 on Thursday. Military loads began at the 9:20 mark. 

I didn't expect to see a second military movement just a few days later.

This BNSF Railway train was loaded with South Dakota Army National Guard vehicles at the Agtegra grain terminal just east of Aberdeen, South Dakota on Friday.

I caught the 71-car train (including buffer, 64 loads and six empties) as it entered Galesburg, Illinois in early afternoon. The train did not depart the Galesburg Yard until late afternoon but I stayed to record its eastbound passage through town on the Chillicothe Subdivision.

The equipment is bound for Grayling, Michigan. BNSF will hand off the train to the Indiana Harbor Belt and it end up moving east of Chicago on CSX Transportation to Mount Morris, Michigan from which the Lake State Railway will haul it to a load/unload platform near the Grayling Army Airfield.

- David P. Jordan