Tons of Rare Amtrak Trains and Equipment Moves South of Chicago’s Union Station 2025

Thank you for watching and I hope you enjoy the video. If you are new here, my channel mostly consists of railroad videography from around the Northeastern USA. Please note that all content that I post is mine and should not be used without my consent. If you are interested in more content from me, my photography can be viewed on Instagram at:   / rail_spike_productions   About this video: This is a collection of videos showing some interesting/unusual Amtrak action just south of Chicago’s incredibly busy Union Station during my brief stay in town between July 21 and 25, 2025. Most shots were taken at either the South Lumber Street railroad crossing or from the West Roosevelt Road overpass. First up in the video is a yard switching crew moving Amtrak’s “Operation Lifesaver” sponsored P42DC 203 on the south end of Amtrak’s massive Chicago facility. Next, a breakdown south Chicago resulted in combined Amtrak sets coming in together (once again at Lumber Street) + some classic power and special paint schemes on both Amtrak and Canadian National trains all in the same area. Most of the clips that make up the rest of the video were shot at Roosevelt Road, and show various revenue Amtrak trains in addition to interesting switching operations, equipment moves, and more. For many of these clips, a deadhead consist from Amtrak train 51 (with extra equipment picked up from the Beech Grove shops in Indiana) is sitting on one of the middle tracks as more action continues around them. This whole consist was waiting to be flipped around before moving into the yard, so when they eventually continued, I moved back to Lumber Street to get shots of them clearing the yard and shoving back in. P42DC 120 and 5 coaches make up the original consist of train 51, with the rest of equipment ahead of the 120 having been added from Beech Grove (as the Cardinal is Amtrak’s regular way to shuffle equipment between these two major facilities). Phase IV heritage painted P42DC 164 was a nice surprise as a part of this extra equipment move, and the video finishes off with this extra-long consist shoving into the yard after running around the wye.