Photos Taken While Riding On Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited






	New at the Sandusky Amtrak Station for 2015, a vending machine!!! The station also of course features a heated waiting room and rest rooms. The vending machine also accepts credit cards too! Considering there's no convenience store near the station, it's nice to have this here.


	Train #49 taking a break at Toledo, OH. This station stop is also a crew change point for the engineer and conductors for this train.


	The bridge in the back is the Anthony Wayne Bridge which carries three Ohio State Highways (Routes 2, 51, & 65) across the Maumee River in Toledo.


	A place setting inside Heritage Diner #8530. This diner received the Temoinsa rebuild treatment, giving it the green and pink interior. Not all diners would get this treatment. This car was originally built in 1951 for the Pennsylvania Railroad as a 29-seat 1 Drawing Room Parlor Car that ran on the Pennsy's famous "Congressional" trains on the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak eventually converted the car to a Dining Car.


	Time for breakfast on the Lake Shore! This morning, I would have Railroad French Toast with pork sausage patties and my go-to morning battery charger, the one and only Diet Pepsi! More good eats in the Amtrak Dining Car!


	Now arriving at our next station stop of Bryan, OH.


	Crossing over the NS Huntington District at CP-338 in Butler, IN. Looking in this direction, this line heads back into Ohio to Montpelier.


	Located at the time of this trip, just east of the Waterloo, IN station is this original New York Central passenger depot. This depot will eventually become host to a waiting room for passengers waiting to board trains here as it will be moved closer to the current station and be used by Amtrak.


	The current Waterloo station, which consists of a bus shelter next to the platform.


	Some nice fall colors at Waterloo.


	Passing by a huge farm in Goshen, IN.


	A quick glance out the window on the other side of my coach shows one of the passenger cars that make up the National New York Central Museum in Elkhart, IN.


	Elkhart is also the next stop for the Lake Shore Limited. The original Lake Shore & Michigan Southern passenger station is used for this stop. The New York Central museum owns and maintains the station which was built in 1900 and is in excellent shape!


	Next up is South Bend, IN, which is home to the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame. South Bend will be the last station stop before Chicago.


	Now paralleling the Chicago, South Shore & South Bend Railroad at New Carlisle, IN.


	This is a former Chicago, South Shore & South Bend passenger car that is part of a now-closed restaurant in Chesterton, IN.


	At CP-482 in Porter, IN, this mainline which is the Amtrak Michigan Line meets up with the Chicago Line (line we are on) for the rest of the way to Chicago which from here is around 40 miles away as this mainline will end at Chicago Union Station.


	New capacity is being added by NS in the area between Porter and Burns Harbor, witness new track going in underneath the overpass that carries US Route 12 over the mainline in Burns Harbor.


	Two Norfolk Southern EMD GP60's working at Burns Harbor Yard. I guess I'm starting to show my age when I say I can remember back in high school when these things were brand new in the early 1990's, pulling Road-Railer trains on the ex-Nickel Plate main that ran through my old neighborhood!!!


	The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore area.


	Passing by two EMD SD38-2's from the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad (now owned by Wisconsin Central, a Canadian National subsidiary) at Gary, IN.


	Passing by the Ameristar Hotel & Casino in East Chicago, IN while NS GE ES44DC #7508 leads a train in the former EJ&E Lake Front Yard.


	NS EMD GP60 #7140 in an Operation Lifesaver paint scheme sits with high-hood EMD GP38-2 #5129 behind it at East Chicago, IN.


	ArcelorMittal's Indiana Harbor Steel Plant at East Chicago.


	Crossing the Indiana Harbor Canal on a movable bridge.


	The road you see in this photo follows the right-of-way that used to be the western end of the New York Central's Water Level Route, the line we've been riding on all this time. In the Penn Central era, this mainline was diverted over to former Pennsylvania Railroad trackage here just west of CP-506. Mileposts on this mainline are miles from Buffalo, NY and were never changed when Norfolk Southern took ownership of this line from Conrail in 1999 as they only own it as far east as CP-181 in Cleveland, OH where CSX takes over.


	Amtrak's station at Hammond-Whiting, IN which at one time was a stop on the Lake Shore Limited back in the early-2000's. Today, the station is used for Wolverine Service trains that go to Michigan. There is a rather historical milepost marker in the far left of the above photo that reads "B 507" which is 507 miles from Buffalo. The station itself is not staffed.


	NS C44-9W #9605 with ES44DC #7636 await their next assignment at the NS 63rd Street/Park Manor Yard in Chicago having now crossed into Illinois.


	The bridge in the left of this photo is the Englewood Flyover which carries the Metra Rock Island District line over the Chicago Line. This was opened in 2014 and it eliminated a diamond here along with a very busy bottleneck for Chicago rail traffic. One of the tracks that used to cross here used the bridge you see in the left of the photo that has the "63" painted on the end of it.


	Crossing over the Dan Ryan Expressway (Interstates 90 & 94) with Chicago's Willis Tower in the background, getting close to the "Windy City"!!!


	Passing by U.S. Cellular Field, home of Major League Baseball's Chicago White Sox.


	Crossing the Canadian National (Former Illinois Central) East-West Main just before crossing the Chicago River.


	Crossing over the South Branch of the Chicago River near Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, we are closing in on Chicago Union Station!


	Now passing through Amtrak's Chicago Yard and Shops (the place on this route where I, the Amtrak aficionado that I am becomes a bona-fide "kid in the candy store") where we have GE P42DC #139 sitting in the yard.


	GE P42DC #56 sits on tracks near the Wheel Trueing Building. If you look closely, the nose of EMD F40PH NPCU #90200 can be seen next to the building.


	Motive Power Industries MP14B Genset #593 handles switching duties at the Chicago Shops. Demotored F40PH NPCU #406 can be seen behind #593, which s used as part of Amtrak's Exhibit Train.


	Heritage Baggage Car #1702, which started its life as a 48 seat coach for the Santa Fe Railway built by Budd in 1953. It would be conveyed to Amtrak in 1971 and continued operating as a coach until it was converted to a baggage car by Amtrak in 1997. Today it sits with other baggage cars, some of which are awaiting retirement as they are being replaced with Viewliner II Baggage Cars built by CAF USA in Elmira Heights, NY (you can see part of one in the far right of this photo, painted in Phase III).


	Now having arrived at this train's final destination of Chicago Union Station on Track #28. I would head inside the Metropolitan Lounge from here to check my bags and then I'm off to Roosevelt Road for some great Chicago & Amtrak railfanning!!!