Chicagoland railfanning

Watch in HD! The semester is over, final grades are in, and the summer has begun! Right after I moved out of my dorm I headed west with my father to Chicago, the busiest rail city in the country and home to a multitude of fascinating lines and railroads. We started by following the CSX line west from Grand Rapids down to New Richmond, Michigan, where we caught a couple of trains in the area before moving down the next day to Benton Harbor, Michigan, where we caught a southbound manifest crossing over the swing bridge located west of town. Passing through New Buffalo, Michigan, we continued west, catching a train on the South Shore and one on the NS Chicago line, before catching several trains around Whiting, Hammond, and Griffith, Indiana, including the unique bottle train. The next few days saw us go to far away places including Clinton, Iowa, and La Grange, Illinois, covering every class 1 in the Chicagoland area and several regionals, such as the Indiana Harbor Belt Railway. We finished up our trip by catching a number of unique moves on CP's ex DME lines in Eastern Iowa, including a ballast train hauled by an SD30ECCO, GP22ECCO, and standard cab SD60 that had just left a coal train derailment!


||Equipment List||

|||Photography|||
Canon 7D Mark II - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
Canon 5D Mark III - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
Manfrotto MT055XPRO3 Tripod - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...

I use hexagonal plates for my tripod mounts, though your usage may vary with those

|||Video|||
Canon XHA-1S - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
Bogen 3040 Video Tripod - No link, but it's relatively easy to find on eBay for about $150

|||Misc|||
ATCS Monitor - https://groups.io/g/ATCSMonitor
Uniden Bearcat BC245XLT - https://wiki.radioreference.com/index...
Final Cut Pro X - https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/