Peoria Station

A lone Kansas City Southern unit pulling a train of 76 cars out of Peoria? Did I mention this is an Iowa Interstate train? The KCS unit, an SD70ACe, arrived East Peoria Thursday afternoon on an empty Norfolk Southern grain train. Two other units continued to Des Moines, Iowa as Iowa Interstate train NS-PEDM (Norfolk Southern haulage - Peoria IL to Des Moines IA). The KCS unit was left behind for the next PESI (Peoria IL to Silvis IL), which ran Saturday morning. Video shot in Rome, Illinois. - David P. Jordan

A little departure from local topics... Megamergers in the past six decades reduced to seven the number of Class I railroads left in the United States. And Illinois is the only state in which all seven operate.  My first encounter with a Kansas City Southern train came in 2008. It was a passenger special sponsored by High Iron Travel. The journey treated riders to a rare-mileage trip from St. Louis to Chicago via KCS to Springfield on Saturday July 19. The next day the journey continued on the Illinois & Midland Railroad to Peoria and then TP&W to Galesburg on BNSF's Peoria Sub. Passenger cars were tacked onto an Amtrak train (probably the Carl Sandburg)) to Chicago. I shot video on both days.  I had yet to catch a KCS freight train. I tried on August 19, 2009 but only managed to encounter the Loami (IL) tornado! Then on October 22, 2013 enroute to the Lexington Group's Kansas City (MO) meeting, I captured my first KCS freight, an eastbound Roodhouse Su...