Railfanning in Central, & Southern Illinois - December 29th, - 31st, 2021

Happy New Year, y'all!!!!!
Here's to a good last episode of 2021! Here we have a montage of railfanning in Central and Southern Illinois
On December 29th, we went up to Centralia for a second trip of railfanning there. We tackled the CN line with the Amtrak Saluki, and Illini trains. You'll also see a good following of CN train A407 from Centralia to La Clede, IL with a repainted IC SD70, and an Illinois Central Death star. After it meets A408 in La Clede, we got a brief pacing footage of A408 going south before passing through Tonti. Big thank you to Southern Illinois Railfan for making this video possible.
Back in Centralia, we got a couple BNSF coal trains. The BNSF line was busier on this trip than it was back in 2018. We also saw BNSF YCEI101, the industrial park train with an HLCX GP38-2 in the lead. This was a good shot since most leasing units have lately been done away with by the class ones. Union Pacific has basically cleared most of its leasing fleet out. NS also got some cool trains as well.
December 30th, I got three trains passing through Mount Vernon, including NS 798, a loaded coal train. The next day, the Evansville Western McLeansboro - Woodlawn, IL run is seen passing by the recently rebuilt Main Street/Broadway Street crossing. It now has two cantilevers, and two electronic bells. The crossing on 10th Street you may have seen in another video from 2017 is also upgraded from two old cantilevers with mechanical bells to two new cantilevers with electronic bells, and it now has gates. I will be making a before and after video of both crossings so you can see the transition.

[@TrainBusinfo]

Beautiful freight train

[@railroadfansandfun]

Great compilation! Loved the Amtrak footage, you were super close to it!

[@trainiac05]

1:02:12 CN symbol is C731