Visited the Chicago area on Saturday. Found this website with train watching locations in the south suburbs: https://www.visitchicagosouthland.com/Rail-Fan. Visited 4 of the sites around 11am to 2pm on a Saturday.
Here's a recap...
The Thornton site is in a decent area and has some parking, but we didn't see any trains.
The Homewood site has a nice little viewing platform with benches and a radio scanner. It's across the tracks from a Metra station. There are about 6-8 tracks. We saw one string of auto carriers being switched on a siding, and a Metra train passed as we were leaving. Nice location - several eating options nearby - but not much action when we were there.
We drove around the Dolton site. I knew in advance that the area is sketchy, but it's really rough. Fortunately, the police station is nearby and the library parking lot was OK - aside from that it looks like a war zone. No activity there either.
Stopped at the double diamonds in Blue Island. Not an upscale area, but not nearly as sketchy as Dolton. Convenient gravel parking area next to the tracks. About 6 tracks and 3 railroads. Met a father and son from PA; son said he was an engineer for CSX and that traffic is down right now - he thinks it tends to fall off in election years. Might have been slow due to it being a weekend, too. He said that this should be one of the busiest places on the south side of Chicago. Might be worth another look sometime.
Would enjoy hearing about the experiences of others at these or nearby locations.
