Got a favorite spot out here? Or curious about “flatland” railroading? Just post it here!
Off the top of my head, no particular order:
Galesburg.
Centralia.
Danville.
Houlihan’s Curve.
Tolono.
Streator.
LATE ADDITION: Tuscola
Of course, Rochelle (if you consider it Central Illinois)
Favorite Spots in no order:
Tuscola
Bement
Newman
Villa Grove
Tolono
Oakland
As far as I am concerned, with the possible exception of Iowa, there is no comparison to Illinois for being a rail fan. I now live in Indiana . . . which is alright and all, but it does not compare to Illinois–I can’t even imagine what Illinois would have been like in the late 60s.
Tuscola is my personal favorite. But, Watseka, Danville, Tolona, Gilman, Centralia have got to be up there. Also, how could I forget Rochelle, Springfield, and Granite City. And then, throw a random dart at a map of Chicago and . . .
I miss Illinois and late-60s railfaning, which I was not around to see, as much as this forum in its hayday.
Gabe
Where is Newman and Bement? What lines go through?
Also, how could I forget Mount Vernon and Effingham?
Gabe
Newman: On US Rt. 36 16 mi. East of Tuscola, CSX line out of Decatur, the daily local’s crew stops to eat here every evening
Bement: About 10 miles south of Monticello, NS Double Track Main, With Branch to Gibson City
That was home. There was a lot to see. I just had trouble getting somewhere to see it. But I did see some of it.
First, there was the C&IM, which I could see because it went through my home town of Manito. It was a “Class 1” back then. Green diesels with red lightening stripes. SW1200s mixed with SD9s on road freights. Then the RS1325s came. Then the SD18s.
I watched 'em do a “flying switch” into the elevator at the south end of town.
Then there were the “Peoria Rockets”. When I was old enough to be authorized to take the bus into Peoria on my own I’d go when the folks would let me. I’d watch an E unit bring the morning train down from Chicago. It had an RPO. Three hours latter I’d watch it leave for Chicago. At least one of the mail clerks was wearing a sidearm.
The morning train to Chicago was harder to get to. It left at 7AM and I was too young to drive. It was a site. Big Rock Island E (or that re-engined DL109), a working RPO, baggage-express car, three coaches, diner-lounge named “Creve Coure Club”, and a full parlor car named “Peoria”. Latter the RPO was removed and replaced with a TTX flat bearing a Rock Island trailer toting the mail.
I didn’t get west of the Illinois River much, but when I did there was the Burlington. I’ll never forget the Kansas City Zephyr slicing through the Illinois corn fields. or those F units arranged ABBA on a Q freight.
I was near Peoria and it seemed every railroad worth its salt had a line into Peoria. The New York Central sure did. I remember its F powered freights moved as fast as I had ever seen any feieht move. The Pensy was in there too, but I never saw it. Nickle Plate was there and the Santa Fe had a branch to Pekin. I watched an IC freight behind five Geeps roll through El Paso. They were moving too. Those NYC, Santa Fe, Pens
I just read an 8 page article in the March 2006 CTC Board (latest issue) about railfanning the CN exIC Homewood to Champaign line. It mentions the town of Onarga, a couple of miles south of Gilman, has a large neon sign with the town’s name facing the tracks, a holdover from the IC passenger train days. Has anyone seen this sign ?
Yes. When I made a trip down the old IC mainline last summer, it still stood proud next to the now-single track main. I believe it still is kept in operating condition by the town. It was raining and gloomy the day I was there, so I figured I’d grab a photo the next time through.
It’s a pretty cool reminder of what once was.
For me it has to go Streator my home then Macomb then Champaign. Of course for flat out speed and the abilty to see them coming aways off go to a auction at Kernan during the fall spring before the crops are seven feet tall and you can hear them then see them for about 3 miles.
I’ve always wondered why that was? Peoria shows up on just about everybody’s old railroad maps. Was it destined to be a gateway, like Chicago or Kansas City, but just never made it to the big time?
My best memory (of many)…at the throttle of a pair of freshly-shopped Amtrak (ex-Milwaukee) E8s on the point of a southbound, eight-car Amtrak “Abe Lincoln” in winter 1975…blasting through Girard, Ill. in the dead of night, Barco speedometer bouncing somewhere between 70 and 90, laying on the air horn, Mars light probing the way through the dark, hearing the echo of the horn bouncing off grain elevators and stored 40’ GM&O boxcars…all under the guidance of the late, veteran hogger James C. “Jimmy” Clark.
And who could forget the high school mascot at Pekin, right across the river from Peoria (until the PC crowd made 'em change to the “Dragons.”)
Train-watching in Macomb? Where were your favorite spots? Please explain, Ed.
I lived there and worked for the city 1972-1976 and didn’t think it remarkable – more fun to watch coeds from Western Illinois University.
Murph –
Peoria with its location on the Illinois River was once a major shipping, industrial and manufacturing center. Just north of the city the river widens into a large lake, where ships once could tie up.
For most of the year (in the old days) before heavy-duty dredging, it was as far upriver as the steamboats and barges dared to travel during low-water summers – in the days before dams and the Army Corps controlled the water depth. What also hurt in those days was the tilling of the land between Peoria and Chicago – the breaking of the prairie sod resulted in horrific soil erosion that eventually silted up the rivers and streams.
Peoria was the northernmost “port city” for goods traveling by boat up the Mississippi River and headed for Chicago and the Great Lakes region – and the reverse trip as well, carrying both manufactured goods as well as agricultural products.
The railroads spiderwebbed out from Peoria to get goods to/from local towns – as well as places like Milwaukee, Rockford, Madison, and even Indianapolis. Even raw materials for the steel mills in Gary were brought up this route on occasion when the St. Lawrence seaway was frozen.
It did make it to the “big time” (relatively speaking) for awhile, but like most towns in that portion of rural Illinois these day, the slump in the ag business has really hurt the overall economy. P
I go to the square and sit at the Amtrak station plenty of things to do decent amount of traffic plus that is were my family is from and I can see my realitives while there in a slack time.
I still have a special, warm spot in my heart for Macomb.
Sooo much has changed, though. Most of the guys I worked with put in their 20 years and were retired by 1995. How many trains do they get through there in an average day?
The next time I’m there (this fall, I hope) I’m going to do some research on the former Macomb, Industry & Littleton Railroad (former Macomb & Western Illinois RR). I never noticed when I lived there, but apparently a lot of the old roadbed and bridge approaches are still visible 75 years later along the St. Francis Blacktop. I also heard there was a stop at Henderson Corners. And a train wreck when a locomotive fell off a trestle down near Gin Ridge, in about 1930.
Pop Z
Well, it wasn’t Chicago or St. Louis, but there was a lot of “Gateway” traffic interchanged between the eastern and western railroads at Peoria/Pekin. It was a good way to avoid congestion at the larger cities. Burlington, Rock Island and Santa Fe (through the TP&W) came in from the west. NYC, NKP and Pensy from the east. The Minneapolis and St. Louis terminated at Peoria.
What hurt Peoria as a Gateway?
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Diversion of boxcar traffic to truck and intermodal
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Run through trains and blocks that minimized the delays at the larger terminals, ie. if UP made a Conway block at North Platt there was no time to be saved routing through Peoria.
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The M&St.L was absorbed into the C&NW.
But Peoria also had a huge industrial base that generated trainloads of freight. Besides Caterpillar, there was LeTearno (SP?), Keystone Steel and Wire, Hiram Walker (world’s larges burbon distillery), a Pabst brewery, meat packers, a bag company, another distillery in Pekin, etc. I know I’ve left a lot out.
There was a lot of freight originating in the Peoria area.
Cat, LeTearno, Keystone and the distillery in Pekin (now Sky Vodka) are still there. The burbon, beer and meat are gone. I don’t know about the Bemis Bag Company.
The Peoria Gateway began to be dismantled in the early 1960’s following the Minneapolis & St. Louis’ absorption into the Chicago & North Western on November 1, 1960. The C&NW’s sales department apparently convinced major shippers to reroute their east-west trasncontinental traffic via Chicago if possible. Major conenctions such as the NKP, TP&W and especially NYC’s Peoria & Eastern, took a big hit in traffic as a result. The M&StL’s Minneapolis - Peoria time-freights Nos. 19 and 20 lasted until 1968, however, they handled a hodge podge of traffic, including performing local work between Oskaloosa and Peoria (grain elevators, fertilizer, etc. and the coal mine at Middle Grove), cuts of Granite City-bound iron ore, plus general merchandise traffic. When Nos. 19-20 were dropped, remaining traffic was shifted to the C&NW’s S. I. Line.
Following the October 1964 merger of the Norfolk & Western, Nickel Plate and Wabash, the once heavy transcontinental traffic routed ATSF-Lomax-TPW-Farmdale-NKP was diverted to a ATSF-Kansas City-NW (ex-WAB) routing. This mostly affected the TP&W when implemented sometime in 1965, but it seems that N&W de-emphasized their Peoria District, reducing interchange with an other major connection, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. By 1970, once heavy meat and perishable traffic moving CB&Q to N&W (via TP&W since they had the only icing facilities left in the area by then) had been reduced to a trickle.
The C&IM de-marketed itself as a bridge line in the mid-1960’s, though some traffic may have been diverted to the GM&O, IC and/or ITC).
I don’t have too many details but I’ve heard that after CB&Q and NYC implemented direct interchange at Cicero for manifest traffic, once-significant interchange at Peoria was reduced. Also, P&E’s general manager reduced the number of daily East Peoria - Indianapolis manifests from two in each direction to one in each direction, often failing to run even that man
i personally had a couple of great decades in Illinois. The 70’s was when I was “outed” as a railfan as a teenager. I had limited funds and resources so most of my railfanning was in Southeastern Illinois, primarily on the Illinois Central, more specifically on the branch line that ran from Mattoon to Evansville, thru my small town. I would get to Effingham frequently and also Mattoon. I visited Centralia twice and logged single trips to Tolono, Tuscola, Mt. Vernon, Lawrencville, and Mt. Carmel. I have a few pictures, which I looked at last week and they give me lots of great memories.
During the 90’s I went on world tour in Illinois. I had a sales career which took me all over…except for the Southeastern Illinois area. The camera was always with me and many a summer evenings were spent looking for trains.
Interesting sites include:
East Dubuque - whatta tunnel
Rochelle - before the park
Nelson - Is the coal tower still there?
Savana - what a place that must have been in the 70’s!
Galesburg
East Peoria - a great site was finding F units in the 90’s still in use
Bloomington - there was a great cabin (tower) at the junction of the ex GMO and NYC routes
Decatur - gotta love the smell of corn being ground up
Danville - kinda anticlimatic at the NS/CSX crossing
Tolono - left me bittersweet on a crisp October afternoon recalling how 20 years had slipped by since I had been there.
Tuscola - got to spend an hour rummaging in the tower (abandoned)
Springfield - Ridgely Tower!
Streator - quite a junction
Champaign - got a picture of the tower before it was gone.
Beardstown - a delightful evening in the yard office with the clerk. I left with lots of BN manuals, timetables and stories of the drawbridge
Lincoln - Rio Grande geeps on the UP
Jacksonville - got there a little too late to photograph the tower, only the bricks remained.
Mattoon