Railfanning Around Chicago 7/10/26

Started the day off with some buddies at Elmwood Park along the Elgin Subdivision where we were first greeted by a nice crewed’ CPKC 2-249 then swooshing Metra’s one after the other. After it became dry of trains, we took a MD-W inbound to Chicago Union Station and walked our way over to Canal Street which is where the Metra and Amtrak trains commute out out of the dark tunnel. After being there for 5-10 minutes (going back soon to spend a full day), we walked our way over to Chicago Ogilvie Transportation Center (OTC) to hop on an outbound UP-W train where we’d get off at Elmhurst Station to see the train we had been waiting on. We were informed about the train, NS 39E which had passed by Chesterton Indiana around the time we were at Elmwood Park, had a NS SD70ACu in tow which suprisingly, is super rare. These locomotives are used for helper service mainly around the Pennsylvania area and are being put away for scrap as they aren’t needed as much anymore. Crazy enough, this locomotive did not get cut off near Ashland Yard owned by Norfolk Southern which we guessed it would. The train interchanged to MNSNP after a crew change and after UP-W rush had cleared up, our train speeds on by racing a westbound coal train with an ex Southern Pacific at the lead. Overall a great day of railfanning so anyways… Enjoy!