An Evening of Indy Railfanning

We typically focus our railfanning efforts on our hometown of Evansville, Indiana, and the immediately surrounding areas. But this time, we're venturing a few hours northeast to the Hoosier State's capital and largest city, Indianapolis. Home of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, the NBA's Indiana Pacers, the WNBA's Indiana Fever, Triple-A baseball's Indianapolis Indians, and the Indy 500, Indianapolis also has a rich railroad history. Way back in 1848, Indy was actually the first city in the world to begin planning a Union Station that would serve as a central terminal for trains operated by competing railroads. And suburban Fishers is now home of the Nickel Plate District, a vibrant cultural neighborhood honoring the historic Nickel Plate Road, which once ran through Fishers on its way south to Indy's downtown area; decorated entirely in the Nickel Plate's iconic black and gold color scheme with concessions available at places like the Railyard Pub and Nickel Plate Market, the Fishers Event Center is home to the ECHL's Indy Fuel minor league hockey team and the IFL's Fishers Freight - an arena football team with a train engine logo and rail-themed merchandise such as crossbuck shirts and conductor hats. All aboard!

While visiting Indy for a weekend of fun (including a Freight game won by the home team on a last-second touchdown so exciting it was featured on ESPN's Pat McAfee Show), we naturally squeezed in an evening of railfanning too. And a successful evening of railfanning it was, with some regional action, foreign power, and even a race!

At 0:30, we start out with a local favorite, the Indiana Rail Road. With a bright-red livery you can't miss, INRD 7010 (a special unit paying tribute to military veterans) and INRD 7007 are pulling a 42-car mixed freight southwestward off of the Belt Line, which is operated by the Indianapolis Union Railway (a terminal railroad owned by CSX). After clearing our filming location along West Street looking below the elevated Raymond Street, the train shifted into reverse and backed into INRD's nearby yard - which we didn't record because we wanted to move on to our next location...

At 5:04, we're on the far west side in suburban Avon, situated atop the Avon Avenue bridge that traverses the western end of CSX's Avon Yard. (Did we mention Avon enough yet?) As the sun is setting behind us, we're lucky enough to catch a visitor - Union Pacific! It's UP 5367 leading UP 6324 and UP 5889, hauling a 103-car mixed freight westbound out of the yard. It stops briefly but then finishes departing, which allowed us to grab some dinner in Avon (sorry) before leaving Avon (not sorry) and heading back into Indy, where we captured an unexpected surprise after day had given way to night...

At 14:52, we're on Lynhurst Drive with a handheld camera because we just happened to stumble upon a good old-fashioned train race! On the near track, a pair of CSX engines are rumbling westward toward Avon Yard (seriously) with a 110-car autorack train. With little delay, the far track then gets in on the action as well; starting from a stop and chugging harmoniously in concert with the autorack train's metal percussion, a 148-car CSX mixed freight begins its own approach to (you guessed it) Avon Yard. The autorack train ends at 19:20, giving us a better look at most of the mixed freight.

And at 24:22, we wrap things up with a couple of still pictures we snapped earlier in the day:

• First, the Indiana Southern Railroad makes a cameo appearance, with ISRR 3043 parked along Kentucky Avenue just southwest of I-465. Interestingly, the GP40-2 (built in 1969 for Baltimore & Ohio) is badged with the ISRR reporting mark but sports the "I&O" logo of the Indiana & Ohio Railway (IORY), which is one of ISRR's corporate cousins under the Genesee & Wyoming banner.

• We conclude our festivities with (fittingly) a caboose - INRD 199560, which has been beautifully restored and often sits on display at the aforementioned INRD yard on Indy's near-southside. Check it out if you're ever near INRD's Senate Avenue Intermodal Terminal, or catch it at the end of INRD's annual Santa Train during the first weekend of each December!

Recorded and photographed on June 20, 2025. (Note that the final video clip suffers from in-and-out focus; our camera sometimes struggles in the dark!)