BUGX 1752, a former Canadian National FP9A unit, which was recently sold by Pioneer RailCorp affiliate Keokuk Junction Railway, trails as the last unit on Norfolk Southern Railways train 167 as it sits at “Smoot” just west of Princeton, Indiana on April 21st, 2021, waiting to meet two eastbound trains on the NS Southern East/West District.
The unit was on the final leg of its journey to a new home at the Ohio River Scenic Railway in Tell City, Indiana, where it will power their tourist line trains that runs through Perry and Spencer Counties in southern Indiana.
This was without a doubt the longest and shortest chase I’ve done in a long time!
I started from my home in Richland, KY to travel to Princeton, IN to meet up with fellow railfan Ryan Scott to catch this train. Well, after the 1.5hr drive and hoping I hadn’t missed it, I finally linked up with Ryan, who had been sitting a couple hours west of Princeton, waiting to catch it also!
Well, needless to say, we were worried that we’d missed it somehow as it was last reported around Centralia, IL at 8am and the trip to Princeton normally takes a couple hours and by the time I linked up with Ryan it had been close to 4!
Ryan jumped in with me (I like to drive) and we decided to head west looking for the train and low and behold, we found it in the siding at Smoot, just west of town!
Well, it sat there for two west bounds before it headed into the yard for a crew change at Ohio Street. After the crew change, they had to do their work, where they dropped off one engine, picked up three more and then two exceptionally long stings of cars! Needless to say, it was 6pm before they finished their work, moved to East Junction where they where they had to wait for two more west bounds!! A total of 6 hours to move about 6 miles, but finally they made their way out of town to Huntingburg where they dropped of the FP9A unit for a local to take it to Tell City. Some days railfanning is like this!
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Air 2 Drone, RAW, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/1600, ISO 100.