Rochelle Country Club is the only course in town and it is private.
There are public courses in DeKalb (multiple), Byron, Oregon and Shabbona, though.
Yeah, I don’t know exactly why BNSF moved the MOW people to a trailer from the depot. Rumors were they were going to move the MOW office to the small yard on the east side of town. I don’t know if they trailer is just temporary. They used to park the local power right by the depot on a couple of tracks across the street. They moved that to the yard, so perhaps the MOW base will eventually move there as well.
Just thought I’d offer a different angle than Jim provided. It was taken in May, 2006 – after I made a special trip to shoot both stations and other buildings following a premonition of their demise. I sure hope they don’t do the same to the old CNW station at DeKalb – they may need it one of these days as a Metra stop.
Passenger waiting room at east end, freight house at west end. Station built 1921. Last passenger service in Rochelle was 1971.
Here’s a Jerry Appleman photo of the eastbound Empire Builder making its scheduled stop at Rochelle station before heading to its next stop at Aurora c1964.
Yes that one in De Kalb is a beauty. It just needs a little work done to it and it would look excellent. The UP depot in Rochelle is in ok shape, not the best, but at least they didn’t tear that one down. This was the second depot BNSF knocked down this year, the other one was Buda on the Mendota Sub.
Here is a photo of the depot while in the demolition stage from the local Rochelle newspaper:
Wow, that is a interesting but sad photo. Not much left by the point.
What prompted BNSF to demolish the depot? Was the building in some sort of advanced state of decay that would have made restoration prohibitive, or was there another reason?