Chasing the Kankakee, Beaverville & Southern Railway скачать в хорошем качестве

Chasing the Kankakee, Beaverville & Southern Railway

The Kankakee, Beaverville & Southern Railway (KBSR) is a Class III railroad operating in east-central Illinois and west-central Indiana. They make connections with the Class I railroads Canadian National (Kankakee, IL), CSX Transportation (Danville, IL), Norfolk Southern (Lafayette, IN), and Union Pacific (St. Anne, IL). They also connect with the Toledo, Peoria & Western in Webster and Sheldon, IL, and the Bee Line Railroad in Handy, Indiana. The traffic is primarily grain, plastics, and chemicals, amounting to over 10,000 carloads a year. They own and operate 6 locomotives, 284 covered hoppers, and approximately 155 miles of track. The Kankakee, Beaverville & Southern was founded in 1977 to operate 25 miles of ex-New York Central trackage between Kankakee and Sheldon, Illinois. The track was to be abandoned, but Beaverville businessman Fey Orr purchased it to provide service to his lumber business and the local agriculture industries. Since then, they have acquired 60 miles of the Milwaukee Road's 'Southeastern Line' between Hooper and Danville, Illinois, and the abandoned ex-Nickel Plate trackage between Cheneyville, Illinois, and Templeton, Indiana. They have also purchased several other small abandonments by Class I carriers. To put the cherry on top, the KBSR acquired the remaining 45 miles of ex-New York Central right-of-way between Templeton and Lafayette, Indiana, forming a large triangle connecting Kankakee, Danville, and Lafayette. This allows them to reach all connections within 4 hours of departing the operations base in Iroquois Junction, Illinois. Originally rostering a motley crew of ALCos (including RS11s, C420s, and one RS3 and S2), the KBSR now uses six EMD GP38M-2s named for employees of the railroad. These are GP40s rebuilt to GP38-2 specs. They still carry three 36-inch radiator fans (a trademark identifying feature of GP40s) but feature non-turbo exhaust stacks of a 16-645E prime mover. I'm not sure if these are the original prime movers with a deleted turbo or are from a different locomotive entirely. It would be neat if they were original because of this next bit. Remember how much of the KBSR's trackage is ex-New York Central? Well, these GP38M-2s complete the story because they started out as New York Central GP40s. They did a stint on the Chicago & North Western in their later years, but these are New York Central locomotives running on New York Central track. Especially in this day and age, that is so unbelievably cool. They aren't painted black anymore, and their screaming turbos have been replaced with howling roots blowers, but I'm not complaining. I would take these over a Class I railroad any day of the week and twice on Sunday. The covered hoppers are just as cool! A vast majority are ex-Chicago & North Western cars, and many are still in their old paint. The heralds are patched out on most of them, but there is one car at the end of the train that is still intact (visible at 3:48). A few other neat cars are from the Klemme Co-Op; they are painted pink! How often do you see pink hoppers? Most of the rail is still jointed; there's something so neat about old EMDs rocking down jointed rail with a long string of CNW hoppers in tow. The shot at 5:19 exemplifies this. Today's train is symbolized as LAFA, an Iroquois-to-Lafayette turn job. They picked up their cars and made a straight run to Lafayette. On the way back, they paused to switch the Keystone fertilizer plant in Templeton. Unfortunately, I didn't get as much usable footage from the return trip. It was literally the windiest day of the year, with gusts approaching 60 miles an hour due to a major system moving in from the northwest. It rendered a good bit of footage unusable; this is what remains. I do apologize for the wind noise. If you like what you see, please consider subscribing :)