I’ve noticed over the last months track work in galesburg near the museum.
can anyone tell me what was done and are ther more changes coming?
Adding a third main up to “Skelley’s”, which is on north east edge of town on the Mendota Sub. The name Skelley’s comes from the location of an old truck stop I believe. Also installing new signals for PTC. Which haven’t been put into service yet.
You could tell something was going on when they installed a cantilever signal bridge that seemed too far east (or it is south) of the main.
In an ironic sense what they are doing is correcting a blunder they made over a decade ago when they – the BNSF - ripped out tracks in the vicinity of the depot. Some conspiracy buffs theorized that the the purpose was to put an end to equipment displays at the annual Railroad Days. That may have not been the motive, but it sure was the practical consequence! And so too were the inevitable bottlenecks because they forgot that often the main is used as a super long switch lead for the yard. And sometimes Amtrak is sitting there. And that depot trackage is actually the junction of 5 lines.
Some of the old heads claimed that the problem was that the BNSF leadership just assumed that the BN didn’t know what it was doing.
The same reasoning caused the CP to rip out double track main from Milwaukee to the Twin Cities that the Milwaukee Road installed and the Soo Line retained. They figured, hey we have CTC, we have passing sidings, we have motive power that just never breaks down … oops. We have a single track main line that never needs to be taken out of service … oops. Hey were’re never trying to run freights and the Empire Builder at the same time on the same track … oops. Maybe the Milwaukee Road was not run by goofs after all.
Dave Nelson
A unrelated question but centered at GAL: is the ADM soybean crush plant on the west side of town still in business or have they switched to all truck loading which so many shippers have converted to?
It was shut down completely in August of last year but then ADM decided last December to reopen it as a grain elevator this July. I’m not sure if it’s being rail served anymore though. I don’t believe so.
A long deceased CB&Q/BN locomotive engineer told an interesting near single tracking tale nearly 30 years ago. It involved the former CB&Q from Aurora, IL to Creston, IA.
The engineer was worried. He said BN experimented with operating Galesburg to Aurora as single track for a very short time. Management seemed pleased with how it worked. The engineer was not.
The engineered argued there had been nothing out the ordinary go wrong during that period. The engineer also commented that coal train numbers were increasing.
True, or not, the story was told long ago. If the second track had been removed, would it have been regretted?
Yea I’ve heard that BN wanted to single track the line before from a former BN employee who worked in the Galesburg Yard.