As a railfan, you can probably guess what I did for spring break this year... hah! Actually, this trip was "to visit colleges" (to mom), but I knew the "real purpose." On our first day of the trip, we got a private tour of Vanderbilt University from a family-friend/student and railfanned a little bit in downtown Nashville.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7ecqNT2wPA
The second day of our trip, we officially toured Vanderbilt and had lunch at a hole-in-the-wall place called Rotier's, which serves Jimmy Buffet's second-favorite burger. It may now be my favorite! We continued north to Champaign, IL for a tour of the University of Illinois, and we paced a CSX intermodal through Evansville, IN and watched an NS coal train load at a flood loader in Princeton, IN. On that leg of the journey, dinner was in Vincennes, IN, at a restaurant called Zander's. In this sad little town, I had a cheeseburger wrapped inside a tortilla. It was a pretty cool idea!
After sleeping in Champaign, we got a late start railfanning and caught nothing. Following was a depressing tour of UIUC. After the tour, we went to Leverett to catch some CN action. We caught one train on the entire line in two days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWWnMyu8JTU
The next day, we got to tour Illinois' Railtec department, and this was a definite pick-me-up from the tour the previous day. Here, I met the two leaders of the program, attended a presentation on some top-secret rail programs, spoke with some of the Railtec students in their room (railfan heaven), and toured the Illinois Model Railfan Club. The club is replacing all of its turnouts for DCC, but they should really rebuild the layout.
Next up was Purdue University in Lafayette, IN. The exciting, roller coaster-like drive up Highway 25 and a beautiful place to watch trains in Lafayette kick-started a great time. I caught lots of NS and some CSX traffic over the next two days, toured the much better Purdue Railroad Club, and got a good tour of the university. I will be travelling back up there this summer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNvxnaa5kvQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI7uC_s5cc4
Our final day of the trip was given to the Rathole. Starting in High Bridge, we made our way south to Bowen, Eubank, and Burnside (Dead Ox Hollow area). Full of trains and lots of beautiful scenery, EM was right when he said I'd be up here at the perfect time to see lots of spring!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA9LquqemSI
Thanks for reading this trip log. I hope to be able to make many more contributions to this thread in the future (specifically regarding trips on the CNO&TP)!
-Chip :)