Some of you may wonder what the purpose of this message board is? Well, it’s simple. We wanted to create a community where railfans from both Illinois and Iowa as well as other states could meet and post their findings, photos, news or whatever they like!
Both Illinois and Iowa have so many great railfanning locations that it would be impossible to list them all. All of you know that Chicago, Illinois is a great train watching location, every Class 1 railroad has operations in the Chicago area. Some people don’t know that there are many other great locations throughout Illinois, for example, if you follow Union Pacific’s Mainline out of Chicago you will find great photo locations such as De Kalb, IL. where there is an old concrete coaling tower across both tracks. Another great location on the UP route in Illinois is Rochelle, IL. where the lines of the Union Pacific and BNSF Railway cross on diamonds. If your into BNSF a great all-BNSF town is Galesburg, IL. BNSF tracks come into the city from every direction, making for some great train watching opportunities!
Iowa also has many great railfanning locations, in the city of Clinton, Iowa Union Pacific crosses the Mississippi River on a large double-track swing bridge. Also in Clinton, the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad operating on former Soo line trackage crosses the Union Pacific on its way down river to Bettendorf, Iowa. Out in central Iowa you will find the enormous Kate Shelly Bridge on the former Chicago & North Western line that is now operated by Union Pacific.
I know there are so many other great places, I covered about 1/1,000,000th of them, but I don’t want to keep you here reading this all day! So get out there and enjoy the trains and come back here and let us all know what you saw!
We hope you find something interesting in the forums and please consider joining our ever-growing community!
Thank you and see you trackside!
Railfans from everywhere are welcome!
-Andrew - Site Admin
