Red Oak, Iowa — BNSF Creston Subdivision
Double track and the California Zephyr, seen from a restored Burlington Northern depot
Red Oak, Iowa — BNSF Creston Subdivision
BNSF Railway — Creston Subdivision (double main) · Red Oak, Iowa, United States
This operator has not granted Spotatrain permission to embed the feed, so we link to it instead.
Watch at Steel Highway RailcamsStreamed by Steel Highway Railcams
Stream hosted by Steel Highway Railcams. Spotatrain links to the original feed and does not rebroadcast.
Credit: Live stream by Steel Highway Railcams, hosted by The Restored Burlington Northern Depot & World War II Memorial Museum.
Where this camera films
Camera position: 41.00224, -95.23108
- Location
- Red Oak, Iowa, United States
- Railroad
BNSF — Creston
≈ MP 442.6 on the Creston — derived from FRA grade crossing 095244W, 60 m away
Weather & light at the camera
Sun times calculated for this camera’s coordinates.
Trains on this camera
Through trains per day
19reported to the FRA
Daytime
10
6 AM – 6 PM
≈ 1 every 72 min
Nighttime
9
6 PM – 6 AM
≈ 1 every 80 min
Reported by the railroad for FRA grade crossing 095244W, 60 m from this camera (FRA inventory, July 2026). An estimate, not a schedule — crossings on this line within 5 km report 13 to 20.
- Track at the crossing
- 1 main track · 79 mph timetable speed
Train types
Passenger trains past this camera
- Train 6, to ChicagoDaily6 – 7 AMrough estimate: no stop within 50 km
- Train 5, to EmeryvilleDaily9 – 10 PMrough estimate: no stop within 50 km
Scheduled times from Amtrak’s official timetable, updated September 19, 2026 — trains often run late. Estimated times are worked out along the line from the nearest scheduled stop.
On the line here
FRA / NTAD — crossing inventory Jul 21, 2026 · bridge inventory Oct 14, 2022
About this cam
The camera looks along BNSF's Creston Subdivision double main at Red Oak, Iowa, from the grounds of the restored Burlington Northern depot. Freight runs between Creston and Red Oak, and Amtrak's California Zephyr passes daily.
Red Oak sits on BNSF Railway's Creston Subdivision, part of the former Burlington Route across southern Iowa, and the camera watches a stretch of double main line from the grounds of the town's restored depot. The operator, Steel Highway Railcams, states that movements here include BNSF trains working between Creston and Red Oak as well as Amtrak's California Zephyr.
The host is The Restored Burlington Northern Depot & World War II Memorial Museum at 305 South 2nd Street. The building pairs its railway history with a memorial museum — Montgomery County sent an unusually high share of its population to the Second World War, and the depot is where many of them left from.
Unlike Mendota further east, Red Oak is not an Amtrak stop: the California Zephyr runs through. That makes this a running-track view rather than a platform view, with both main tracks in frame and a crossover in the foreground.
What to watch for
This is a double-track main, so meets and overtakes happen in frame rather than off camera, and the crossover in the foreground is where they get sorted out. BNSF freight between Creston and Red Oak is the bread and butter. The set piece is Amtrak's California Zephyr, which does not stop here and comes through at track speed — eastbound it runs as train 6, westbound as train 5. The operator monitors AAR channel 53 (160.905 MHz), so you hear the road channel as well as watching it.
The camera
- Stream
- YouTube live stream
- Filming
- Historic depot
- Traffic
- Freight & passenger
- Sound
- Live lineside audio — horns and engines
- Hours
- Streams around the clock, 24/7
- Camera movement
- Fixed view
- Feed checked
- August 5, 2026
Filmed location
The place this camera films is documented on Spotatrain — traffic levels, best angles, and visiting info (Epic Journey):
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