That is why I love my house. I live maybe a quarter of mile from the former ATSF transcon half a block from the old NYC line going to Hennipin and 1 block from the Streator connection track. The ironic part is my boss gets service from both railroads listed. My husband several times has called and said your hoppers are here when he sees the locals come into town and gives me the car numbers. His computer is right at the picture window and gives him a view of the tracks on the BNSF until the farmer plants corn. He makes my job so easy sometimes.
I'll add to my OP.
Tonight my significant other female person was otherwise engaged taking care of one of her numerous grandchildren. So I was on my own for the evening meal.
I decided I wanted some good Mexican food. The best place I know of around here is called "El Paso". It is in the town right next over in Lake Villa, IL and hard by the CN line.
So I'm driving south on Illinois Rt. #83 to Lake Villa when I realize I'm paralleling a SB CN frieght. Cool! The freight was slowing down so I caught up with the engines where Rt. #83 goes over the tracks. I got to the restaurant ahead of the train and walked over to the tracks. There are signals right at the restaurant. One track had a red, the other track had a yellow. I guess he had the red because he stopped up the track a ways so as not to block two road crossings in town. Oh well. I was hungry and I went on in and ordered dinner.
Exiting the restaurant after the meal the crossing signals activated. So I just stood in the parking lot and watched a SB double stack train roll by. It was perfectly loaded. Every well except one had containers two high. I'll guess the two 20' containers in that well took up the weight capacity of the well so they couldn't put one on top.
Happiness is a busy railroad to watch.
I've been fortunate that I've spent most of my life fairly near some good train watching spots. While growing up, I could watch the South Shore from my back yard and needed to walk only a block or two to see the NKP and CWI (EL, C&O, Monon) main lines. Later, I lived about a half-mile south of the BN main to Aurora. Currently, I'm about a mile south of the crest of Clearing's hump and can easily hear the squeal of retarders, especially on summer nights.
I live in CSX country but I'll tell you from experience if there's a busy rail line in your area and you like railfanning, get out and have a look, you might see anything!
I've had my share of surprises, trust me.
When I sold my house in Downers Grove, IL after a divorce I thought it was the end of the local big time railroad show for me. It is true, you cannot beat the BNSF Race Track for a railroad show. I saw about everything. From a unit sulpher train, to Amtrak, to the commuter trains, to a UP stack train on trackage rights, to unit coal, and hot intermodals. And the trains ran very frequently.
So I wound up in Antioch, IL. It's on the old Soo Line, now CN. I will tell you than the CN does put on a good local offering. Not as often or varried as the Race Track, but dang good. Metra does use the line, so if you like passenger trains, they're here.
Today I was driving north paralleling the CN line. I saw a southbound double stack with one unit up front. (It had a single DPU.) So I made a right turn to watch the containers go by. As I was waiting at the crossing a northbound with four BNSF engines went by simultaineously with the stack train. Cool. (There are two main tracks at the location. The dispatcher had each train on the left side.)
The northbound consisted of only short, two bay covered hoppers. So I'm guessing that it was an empty unit frac sand train headed back to a Wisconsin sand pit.
Not bad railfaning for a shopping trip.
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