Last runs of the RoadRailers
The RoadRailer era is over. Once extending to a number of railroads — and for several years exclusive to Norfolk Southern — the RoadRailer period came to an end on the weekend of Aug. 24-25, 2024. NS, having previously pared back its offering of Triple Crown-branded routes to a single pair of Detroit-Kansas City trains, Nos. 255 and 256, made the decision to discontinue the service altogether, and replace the aging trailer-without-flatcar operation with conventional shipping container services.
My story with these unique intermodal trains begins on Friday, Aug. 23. My chosen spotting location for the weekend was Lafayette, Ind. Both trains are profiled to pass through downtown in the bright midday sun, and Indiana State Route 25, the Hoosier Heartland Highway, parallels the NS Lafayette District for almost 40 miles between Lafayette and Logansport, allowing for ample opportunities for chasing.
I left home in Ohio after work, and darkness fell as I made my way across rural Indiana. I saw so little life on the isolated highway that I found myself quite surprised to see flashing red lights in the distance as I skirted the town limits of Delphi at nearly 10:30 p.m. A railroad crossing was active, and a locomotive headlight was slowly inching its way across. I thought, “It would be cool if this were the RoadRailer” — a joke because what little I knew about the service implied that eastbound train No. 256 should have been in Michigan by this point. As I crested a bridge over the tracks I was shocked and surprised to discover that yes, against all odds, it was No. 256, running many hours behind. One U-turn, and a judicious application of some “driving music” (The Top [Extended] – 2019, Ken Blast) got me ahead of the train, and I found a dark and desolate country road crossing just north of Delphi. It streaked by a few minutes later, bathed in the headlights of my car and the red lights of the crossing gates. It vanished into the night as quickly as it came, and I proceeded on to Lafayette, feeling optimistic about my prospects of catching the last movements this weekend.
The next day illustrated the phrase “hurry up and wait.” I arrived at Lafayette’s Amtrak station before 9 a.m., expecting mid-morning train No. 255. What happened instead was the arrival of CSX ES44AH No. 3415 (the Georgia Road sticker “heritage” unit) on M642, the only northbound CSX manifest freight that runs through Lafayette; it stopped next to the platform, cut off the locomotives and front end of the train, and left the rear half there until well after 8 p.m. If Amtrak were not a factor, it might have stayed all night. Hours stretched on, with the occasional NS train rumbling past the stopped M642. The highlight of the day’s spotting (aside from No. 255) was the 9:20 a.m. appearance of NS train 424, an as-needed loaded coke train bound for Detroit; its appearance surprised local railfans, and it delayed proceedings throughout the day as it wound its way around scheduled traffic.
A light engine move passed about 20 minutes later, moving back to Lafayette yard. In a move of foreshadowing, a local spotter mentioned this was a yard job, returning from a transfer move to CSX. The day dragged on, the temperature soared to eventually become a heat advisory, but still no 255. It wasn’t even close, as it was following on the heels of manifest train 121, itself delayed by the unscheduled No. 424. Such are the delays on a single-track railroad. No. 121 eventually arrived at 11 a.m., and once it passed, the yard job reappeared, running long hood forward on the outside line. It ground to a stop across from the stopped M642, and someone’s scanner promptly crackled. The yard job was waiting until No. 255 went by. Just 15 minutes later at a quarter to noon, No. 255 arrived, rattling between the two trains that seemed to block it from all but the worst angles, and vanished.
After that, I plotted my next move. Temperatures were soaring in excess of 90 degrees with humidity of 70% or more, and I had no plans for getting heatstroke. A spot with shade or air conditioning access was key, or, failing that, somewhere I could park my car and see the tracks. The final run of 256 was made all the more special with the inclusion of NS Nickel Plate Heritage unit No. 8100 on point. I needed somewhere wide-open to see the RoadRailers and the locomotive, while also ensuring the photo wasn’t horribly backlit. With this in mind, I went further afield up the Lafayette subdivision, looking for a place with good light and road access. After some hits and misses — westbound trains looked much better in the available lighting — the spot of choice turned out to be the on-ramp to the same highway overpass near Delphi where I had seen No. 256 the night before.
Then the waiting began. A single intermodal train passed during the next 2½ hours. As it turned out, train 36N (formerly 32N, of East Palestine infamy) was running ahead of No. 256, and the priority RoadRailer was held back to allow the manifest freight to pick up and set out cars along the way. After this I began to despair that 256 might still be in Lafayette, waiting on the intermodal train from earlier, however just 20 minutes later, with the light turning golden, it finally slipped underneath Route 25 and rattled into Delphi. Since I had committed myself to do so, I quickly gave chase, stopping in Rockfield and Burrows, Ind., before calling it a day just before sunset.
The next morning I started later and made my way up to Logansport, Ind. This approach was rewarded by the fact that the final No. 255 had been delayed by a broken down train 35N. It didn’t arrive in Logansport, an hour or more north from Lafayette, until 11:30 a.m. Inspired by some photos taken of the last daylight meet of the RoadRailers in Sidney, Ill., the day before, I took some shots of the train passing by a repurposed trailer at the NS yard office in town, and used my drone to get shots of the train arcing over the Wabash river and down the line towards Clymers. On the ground, I took one final shot as the trailers banged across the Toledo, Peoria & Western diamond just before the river, and then set off for home.
Leaving Logansport, I made my way up to Fort Wayne, where I flew my drone over the Fort Wayne Railway Historical Society. Turns out that they have an older RoadRailer in their lot — a nice way to close out the trip through Indiana.
I then made my way up to the Chicago Line, catching trains in Ohio between Edgerton and Bryan, before catching the NS No. 8099 leading train 23G at the Bryan Amtrak station. This is going to be roughly what the new RoadRailer replacement Triple Crown train 251/252 will look like in a few weeks — domestic double-stacks going down the Chicago Line out of Toledo toward the diamond at Butler, Ind..
On Monday Aug. 26, I documented the yard that NS built for trains 251 and 252 in Toledo, Ohio. Situated on the site of the old Toledo Automotive Terminal inside Airline yard, the facility was built from the ground up over summer 2024. Despite being just one day into operation, the facility was already busy breaking down the inaugural 251 and putting together the first 252. This train will look rather awkward for a few weeks, consisting mostly of single-stack containers and TOFCs before transitioning to full double-stacks. The old RoadRailers were already an endangered species, with a scant dozen scattered throughout the yard, and a few more pulling in on trucks. Green Triple Crown containers are the new standard, and the loading crews know it — as I watched, a container lift tried and failed five times to get a RoadRailer onto a spine car before it finally set into place.
I left the new Triple Crown yard as the sun set, and as I did, I passed a pair of semi-trucks waiting to turn at an intersection. I passed them without much thought, until I realized that the second truck was pulling a RoadRailer trailer. The trailer made its turn before I could get anything other than a blurry photo through a car window, and it slipped away as fast as it had approached. It felt somewhat appropriate: now that the train was gone, the RoadRailer was just another trailer rolling down the highway.
