Chicago Line Touring: Porter-Chesterton, Indiana is all day fun and trains.

My long-time, desire is to railfan the places on NS' Chicago Line and find the fun places to go. The fun places must have an affordable place to lay your head and get yourself rested for the next day's fun. There should be places to get a bite to eat, and that includes healthy choices. There should be places you can go around the area to easily, safely and legally access the tracks and shoot your videos. Most of all, the fun places must have lots of train action without having to wait hours to see a single train. 

One of those places is the Porter-Chesterton area. The Chicago Line is said to have about 60 trains a day and, at times, that seems accurate. You will also see BNSF and CPKC hauling on these lines. You'll see a lot of NS intermodal trains, but you'll see the flat cars with rolled steel that comes out of the steel mills in Gary. You will see gondola cars with coal, and on the last trip two weeks ago, there was a west bound train with NS' new gondola cars. You might even see an NS Heritage locomotive, like the Lehigh Valley. 

Lehigh Valley Locomotive. According to the Steam page, the 8104 was made by General Electric in 2012. It was painted in the LV railroad colors and the grey stripes were painted later. Link. The Lehigh Valley Railroad was the most colorful railroad in history. In 1976, LHV was taken under control of Conrail (Consolidated Rail) and the locomotive is still in service with Norfolk Southern (Link).

Where you can go to railfan and take your videos. The top place to go is to Thomas Centennial Park, a small town park next to the tracks with a bandstand and park benches. The railroad themed park includes restrooms inside of a renovated boxcar, accessible by a ramp that is also an great observation platform that places you at crew window level directly next to the Chicago Line. Before you leave home, set your GPS to head straight to this park! 

Porter-Chesterton train action YouTube Playlist

Where you can stay and chow down. I don't want to spend too much to sleep and I want a clean room. The best choice is the FairBridge Inn Express in Chesterton (use your travel booking app). This place is around the corner and three blocks from Thomas Centennial Park and costs (as of now) $50-65 per night (Location 1). You can hear the trains loud and clear throughout the night! You could also spend the night trackside at Riley's Railhouse, a bed and breakfast, but that will set you back some bucks. 

Around the hotel you will find mainly fast food, McDonald's, Arby's, and the like. I have a special diet need, and I tend to bring my own food and heat it up in a 12 volt plug-in lunch box. There are restaurants across the street from Centennial Park. I haven't visited them all, and they tend to be pricey compared to fast food, but have some healthy choices. One place is the Red Cup Cafe (red pin on map)that is right across the street from Centennial Park. They have a wonderful grilled turkey - cheese sandwich and home made, oven-baked potato chips. 

Walk back across  Broadway Avenue and enjoy the trains! 

Location 1. Fairbridge Inn and mostly fast food restaurants.

Location 2. Thomas Centennial Park and the best place to enjoy the trains on the Chicago Line. 

Red location pin: Location of Red Cup Cafe.