Milford Jct., Indiana trains 1987 - Part 1 (some scanner audio)

In 1987 traffic on the ex-B&O started to pick up with the trains gained from the C&O of Indiana. In 1986 Soo Line began operating high priority Railrunner trains 502 and 503 between Chicago and Montreal via the B&O main. The Conrail Marion Branch traffic often filled in the B&O gaps. This video starts out on a gloomy day in mid-January and ends in mid-August with the "Soo Line rescue." Footage notes are below. Filmed with a Sony BMC-110 BetaMovie camera.
Thanks for watching!
~ Zeke
January 17, 1987
00:00 Southbound Conrail ELFW with CR 7741 leading. CNW caboose.
00:48 Eastbound CSX (BO 7594) with a fouled RS5T horn and an SD50.
February 7, 1987
01:44 Westbound Soo Line 503 (CSX 203) “Railrunner” with SOO 6615 leading. Awesome Leslie SU3L horn.
03:20 Southbound Conrail ELIN (CR 1994) at notch 8 with BN 12036 wide vision caboose. Pretty interesting power consist and you can really hear that GP38 in the back.
04:20 Southbound Conrail ELFW (CR 7656) and BN wide vision caboose. The automotive chassis behind the locomotives were rare for this train. Possibly they were headed for the GM plant in Roanoke, IN.
July 29, 1987
05:11 CSX 8405 west, single unit and BO 903979 bay window caboose
06:20 Eastbound CSX J825 headed back to Garrett with CSX 2116 (ex-BO) and LN transfer caboose as a thunderstorm approaches.
06:50 Southbound Conrail ELIN-9X in a downpour. The Conrail Milford Junction defect detector starts to transmit just as the engineer starts blowing the horn. The CSX (Chessie) one kept going off due to lightning strikes. You can hear the hail pinging off the roof of my truck.
August 19, 1987
08:27 Soo Line 503 (CSX 203) with SOO 6612 leading rescues CSX J825 (the local from Garrett). The scanner audio narrates. J825 was switching out the Purina plant just west of the diamond when their locomotive (CSX 6798) got stuck in reverse while they were on the plant spur, leaving the rest of their train blocking the mainline. The dispatcher had the Soo Line pull the rest of their train into the transfer track at Milford Jct. My scanner had a loud speaker and I had it sitting on the hood of my truck.
17:25 The replacement locomotive (CSX 2047) comes from the west to get CSX 6798 out of the Purina track. This grade crossing was appropriately known as “Bow Wow” back in the day. I think 2047 came from an eastbound that was waiting at West Nappanee.

[@StormySkyRailProductions]

Man that was sweet as can be, would have loved to been there back then! (Dave).

[@ChadQuick270W]

Ahh yes. The good old days of rail fanning.

[@dwkcamman611]

Great video!!

[@ericzerkle8486]

Nice hailstorm.

[@joshuagarber9963]

On the occasions in the mid 90's that I saw ELFW and FWEL they had power on both ends of the train to facilitate the move to and from the Fort Wayne Line at Warsaw. The ELFW's in this video did not have power on the rear. Do you know how they made the move at Warsaw without the extra power?

[@wmuzeke]

They used the Winona Siding in Warsaw on the Pennsy to run the power around to the other end of the train. That was one of the main reasons Conrail kept that section of double-track after they single-tracked the line in 1985. The caboose helped with the shove around the wye. It's interesting because before the GR&I was abandoned, it ran via Kendallville and no reverse moves were needed.

[@AtlasShrugged123]

Just a quick question if you don't mind. The SOO Line Railrunners had numbers similar to when I was a conductor on CSX out of Grand Rapids Michigan in the late 90s. 503 is an example. What were the routings of these Railrunners pre-Grand Rapids Subdivision, and are they indeed the same trains? Thanks for the great videos. I will be binge watching your content. These were such a great time in railroad history. There was variety. Now it's just GE widecabs or EMD widecabs on the mainline mostly.

[@wmuzeke]

Don't mind at all. Thanks for chiming in. The routing of 502/503 was Chicago-Deshler-Toledo-Plymouth (MI)-Detroit. During this time Soo Line was also running trains 500 & 501 via the Grand Rapids Sub. Soo Line removed 502/503 from the B&O in late 1988/early 1989, but kept operating the trains on the Grand Rapids Sub well into the 1990s. I'm thinking those are probably the trains that you mentioned. Both sets of Railrunners were similar looking trains - CP or SOO power, lots of CAST single-stack containers, boxcars, hoppers etc.

[@ericzerkle5214]

ELFW and FWEL used to run the old GR&I via Kville pre 1982.