Hello everyone and welcome to Train Talk!
Today, we are going to talk about a so called railroad “hot spot”, or great place to
watch trains, that is located in Rochelle, Illinois.
So let’s visit the Rochelle Railroad Park!
Rochelle is a quiet little town, located about 75 miles to the west of Chicago in the north-central
portion of the state of Illinois.
It is in this town where two major rail lines cross each other, making for a great place
to watch trains.
Running northwest to south east is the BNSF mainline.
The other rail line, running southwest to northeast through the town is the Union Pacific’s
mainline.
Both of these rail lines are major components of the national cross country freight rail
network.
The BNSF line was formerly owned by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad, and it runs
from Minnesota’s Twin Cities region south along the mississippi river into Iowa, then
crossing the river into Illinois, through Rochelle, and to Aurora, Illinois, where it
joins up with the BNSF’s triple track mainline into Chicago, known as the “race track”.
The Union Pacific line is also a very important east-west running railroad.
It was once part of the Chicago and North Western Railroad and begins as far west as
Council Bluffs, Iowa.
It passes through Des Moines, Iowa, Rochelle, Illinois, and then into Chicago.
The final stretch of this line into Chicago is used by Metra commuter trains as the “Metra
Union Pacific West line”.
In addition to both rail lines meeting here, Rochelle is also important because it is the
location of Union Pacific’s “Global 3” yard facility, one of 5 large intermodal container
train yards used by the Union Pacific in the greater Chicago area.
The yard is located on the west side of town.
It is because of all this train action that Rochelle has become such a great place to
watch trains.
The Rochelle Railroad park was opened in August of 1998 and serves as a safe and fun place
for railroad enthusiasts from all around the world to come and watch trains.
The park is situated directly to the east of the railroad junction between the Union
Pacific and BNSF railroads.
This kind of junction or crossover is called a diamond because of the shape made by the
rails where they meet.
Because of this junction, there are over 80 trains that pass through here in a 24 hour
period, making this an especially good place to watch trains.
In addition to a view of the diamonds and the passing trains on both lines, the park
also features a gift shop open every day of the week except Tuesdays, two diesel locomotives
and a demonstration piece of old fashioned “strap track” that are on display, and
a covered pavilion with benches and radios set to the frequencies of both railroads,
so you can hear the crews of approaching trains.
The park is open 24 hours a day, so you can watch trains pass by here at all hours.
And, for those of you who aren’t able to make the trip to Rochelle but still want to
see the trains pass, you can go directly to the park’s website to view real time web
cams showing the passing trains.
Also not far away on the BNSF rail line is the old Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy passenger
depot, built in 1921.
While at one time Rochelle was served by passenger trains on both rail lines, passenger service
officially ended in 1971 with the formation of Amtrak and since then, no regularly scheduled
passenger trains have been routed through Rochelle.
While there are now several railroad parks in various places in the United States, Rochelle
was the first such park to be built.
Historically, Rochelle was a well known place to watch trains among railroad enthusiasts.
Over the years, it grew in popularity to the point where the city of Rochelle decided it
would be a good idea to open up a train watching park as a way of building tourism.
So in 1995, the parcel of land located directly to the east of the diamonds was purchased
and construction began.
The park was finally opened to the public on August 30th, 1998, and it has remained
a great place to watch trains every day since.
Thanks for watching this episode of Train Talk!
To find out more about the Rochelle Railroad Park and to view the park’s webcam, please
visit rochellerailroadpark.org.
And, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please leave those below!
Until next time, I’m Mike Armstrong.
I’ll see you down the line!
Thanks for watching!