CPKC Holiday Train arrival into Ottumwa, IA + stalled freight on hill, BNSF trains | 11-26-25 Replay

Описание: Well folks, what started out as what I thought would be a brief livestream to see CPKC's Holiday Train, turned into an almost three-hour "epic" of railroading ridiculousness! I arrived on scene in western Ottumwa, Iowa, late in the evening on November 25th, 2025, near the diamond crossing where CPKC's tracks cross BNSF's double track mainline. I got in position a good 20-25 minutes or so after the Holiday Train cleared Washington, Iowa, as it continued south towards Ottumwa to tie up after a number of performance stops during the day (Muscatine was the last stop of the day). I figured if it was anything like previous years, the train would roll in sometime between 10:30-11 PM. This would have been the case, and the Holiday Train did arrive in town a little before 11, but instead of coming straight down into the yard, pulled into Rutledge siding on the north edge of Ottumwa, to allow a northbound freight to come up the hill out of the yard first. This decision was made by the dispatcher most likely because there were several other trains in the yard that needed to go to make room for others, including the Holiday Train.

Not much later, the northbound freight train, CPKC 261, comes through and begins its climb up Rutledge Hill. At my vantage point at the bottom, everything seems normal, until I hear the crew contacting the dispatcher about their inability to get to the top, eventually stalling. I knew that this was probably the beginning of a long night, and sure enough it happened. Thankfully, another northbound was directly behind 261, freight train 253, and was almost ready to pull into the Ottumwa yard. The local roadmaster and crews agreed to have the engines cut off the front of 253, and run light up the hill to help push 261 to the top. While all this was happening, BNSF regained control of the interlocking and started sending some of their trains through. A westbound empty coal train went slowly through the plant before 253's units could be talked through and head north to rescue 261. The units went up the hill and attached to the rear of 261, and started pushing. It didn't take very long for 261 to get up the hill enough that 253's units could be uncoupled and brought back towards the yard. Another BNSF freight went west at this time, an oil train with a couple of NS diesels on the point.

The units of 253 backed down the line towards the yard, and once in the yard limits the Holiday Train finally got its chance to come down Rutledge Hill. By this time, it was well after 1 in the morning! Definitely the latest (or earliest?) I've ever been out railfanning by a long shot. I stood outside my car, that I'd been in throughout the majority of the stream, to get a decent panning view of the fully lit Christmas train as it passed. Even outside for just these brief minutes, it was bone-chilling cold with heavy westerly winds, blowing in the first significant warning sign that winter is on its way. Once the train passed, I said a few more words before ending the stream and heading home. This was by far not the type of stream I'd set out to record at the onset, but it will definitely go down in history as one of my craziest ever! I hope to not repeat it for some time...lol!

I plan on adding manual timestamps to the video soon so you can jump through all of the highlights of the stream.

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