Trainfest Day Two

On Friday we chased the daylight, covering country dirt roads and fields and me learning to navigate on the fly using the GPS screen. This was the first trip the Southern Pacific Railroad 4449, known as the "Daylight", has made east of Chicago since 1976. Back then it was famously known as 'The Freedom Train', and the 1941 locomotive is now back in orange and black color scheme.
The dotted lines are the path(s) we took chasing the train.

We spend the morning going from crossing to crossing with many other 'railfans', getting ahead of the train and then watching it go by. When the train arrived in Alma, MI, the endpoint of the excursion and where they turned the train around and took lunch break, we scoped out the few lunch offerings for our Saturday train ride and concluded we were best off bringing our own lunch on board. Needing lunch ourselves, we drove back to Ithaca and had lunch at the "Country Chef Cafe" with the locals. A small establishment of 10 tables, but sporting a menu with 20+ hamburg variations and reasonable prices. That evening, we drove to Clara's Lansing Station in the old Lansing railroad station and had a nice dinner outside next to the tracks.