The beautiful “Virginian” SD70ACE heritage unit

From May 10th, 2024. So glad I managed to catch and video this rare NS heritage unit treat for you all here on RUclips on a fun Friday night before my wonderful weekend off work. Way better than trying to get out to Centralia Illinois and possibly end up missing it completely. After dinner at home then seeing Amtrak 21 with the phase IV P42 heritage unit number 164 on it leaving Saint Louis with my pal Scott Nauert on the Desoto sub, then seeing just a few trains including Amtrak 316 with my friends at Kirkwood Amtrak station, I then decided to after seeing Amtrak 305 come into Saint Louis at Cerre street drive on over to Belleville Illinois in hopes of catching another favorite heritage unit of mine which I do have in Kato N scale on my n scale model train layouts at home. I was in the right place pretty much at the right time for it too. Had to wait a while but it was definitely worth it. Caught it at the Belleville Illinois north belt west grade crossing near the outdoor sky view drive-in. It’s Norfolk Southern westbound manifest train 168 from Chattanooga Tennessee to Saint Louis Missouri and tonight it’s being led by one of my several favorite NS SD70ACE héritage units. This one which I think is very colorful is called the “Virginian” SD70ACE heritage unit NS number 1069. It recently got a brand new shiny coat of paint and it looks all nice & splendid once again. Trailing the “Virginian” heritage unit is a Norfolk Southern AC44C6M #4427, then it also had a single mid train helper engine a Norfolk Southern SD70ACE #1214. My friend Scott Nauert was not with me for this wonderful experience cause he had plans to wake up early then to leave town rather early the following Saturday morning May 11th, 2024 to go out west to catch a special Canadian Pacific steam and diesel powered passenger train that came here to the USA from up in Canada. Hope you all like this great video by me. Feel free to comment on it too. Enjoy! Jason.