Boarding has begun for the Chicago-bound Hoosier State on June 25 at Indianapolis Union Station.
By the time I arrived in Indianapolis Amtrak’s Hoosier State had just one week left to live.
I would experience No. 851 three times before it made its final trip on June 30, riding it once and photographing it trackside twice.
I had ridden the Hoosier State several times but not since August 1991.
Interestingly, my purpose for riding the Hoosier State nearly 28 years later would be the same as why I rode it in 1991.
I was moving and needed to go back to my former hometown to pick up a car and drive it to my new hometown.
In 1991 I had driven from Indianapolis to State College, Pennsylvania. In 2019 I drove from Cleveland to Indianapolis.
Boarding of No. 851 began shortly after I arrived at Indianapolis Union Station on the morning of June 25.
I was the second passenger to board the Horizon fleet coach to which most Indy passengers were assigned. The car was about two-thirds full.
The consist also included an Amfleet coach, an Amfleet food service car and two P42DC locomotives, Nos. 77 and 55.
We departed on time but a few minutes later received a penalty application near CP Holt that required a conversation with the CSX PTC desk.
We would later encounter a delay between Crawfordsville and Lafayette due to signal issues.
Yet there was no freight train interference en route that I observed. We stopped briefly in Chicago so a Metra train could go around us.
That was probably because we were early. We halted at Chicago Union Station 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
I had heard the former Monon can be rough riding, but I didn’t think it was any worse than other Amtrak routes I’ve ridden.
There wasn’t any of the abrupt sideways jerking that I’ve experienced on other Amtrak trains.
The journey did seem to be slow going at times, particularly through the CSX yard in Lafayette; on the former Grand Trunk Western west of Munster, Indiana; through the Union Pacific yard on the former Chicago & Eastern Illinois; and within Chicago proper.
Overall, the experience was much the same as riding any other Amtrak Midwest corridor train although it featured an entrance into Chicago that I had not experienced before in daylight.
The crew said nothing about it being the last week of operation for Nos. 850 and 851.
My next encounter with the Hoosier State came in Lafayette on June 28.
No. 851 arrived on time with a more typical consist that included cars being ferried from Beach Grove shops to Chicago.
These included a Superliner sleeping car, a Viewliner baggage car, a Horizon food service car, and a Heritage baggage car. There also was the standard Hoosier State consist of three cars. On the point was P42DC No. 99.
I was positioned next to the former Big Four station at Riehle Plaza so I could photograph above the train.
Although a sunny morning, the tracks were more in shadows than I would have liked. Nonetheless I was pleased, overall, with what I came away with.
After No 851 departed – it operated on CSX as P317, an original Hoosier State number – I went over to Fifth Street to photograph it sans railroad tracks.
One stretch of rails has been left in the street in front of the former Monon passenger station.
My last encounter with the Hoosier State would be my briefest.
I drove to Linden to photograph the last northbound run at the railroad museum at the former joint Monon-Nickel Plate depot.
No. 851 was 24 minutes late leaving Indianapolis Union Station and about that late at Crawfordsville.
It had a consist similar to what I had seen in Lafayette two days earlier. P42DC No. 160 had a battered nose with some of its silver paint peeling away.
I wasn’t aware until I saw them that two former Pennsylvania Railroad cars had been chartered to operate on the rear of the last Hoosier State.
They were Colonial Crafts and Frank Thomson. The latter carried a Pennsy keystone tail sign on its observation end emblazoned with the Hoosier State name.
It was a nice touch and after those cars charged past the Hoosier State was gone in more ways than one.
That’s my Horizon coach reflected in the lower level of the Lafayette station.
Watching the countryside slide by west of Monon, Indiana.
The Hoosier State has come to a halt on Track 16 at Chicago Union Station. That’s the inbound City of New Orleans to the left.
A crowd lines the platform in Lafayette as the Hoosier State arrives en route to Chicago.
The former Big Four station in Lafayette was moved to its current location to serve Amtrak. At one time it also served intercity buses.
Pulling out of Lafayette on the penultimate northbound trip to Chicago.
P42DC No. 160, which pulled the last northbound Amtrak Train No. 851 had a well-worn nose.
Two former Pennsylvania Railroad passenger cars brought up the rear of the last northbound Hoosier State.
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