A railroad company is currently operating a coal train in Illinois between a mine in one county to a powerplant in another county. The 60 mile route this train takes each way is made up from 6 fallen flag railroads that existed 50 years ago. Two other fallen flags got involved in the route during the intervening years. Ownership of the route is now held by two more railroads. Name the 10 railroads.
#1 operated in Illinois and Missouri, and had it’s own bridge between them.
#2 switched to GE’s after finding fortune out west.
#3 called itself The St. Louis Gateway Route.
#4 did not reach from the great Atlantic Ocean to the wide Pacific shore, or from sunny California to ice-bound Labrador, although a lot of people may think it did.
#5 grew up to be bigger than either of it’s parents.
#6 was known for fast steam powered freight trains.
#7 became a midwestern railroad by swallowing two of these fallen flags, and adding a third one later.
#8 was born after decades of labor.
#9 operates this train.
#10 owns 30% of Amtrak’s 21,767 route miles, more than anyone else.
I’m thinking this is the Monterrey Mine-Coffeen coal train operated between Gillespie and Coffeen, IL. The NS operates the train via the former Illinois Terminal (Monterrey Mine spur), CNW (Monterrey Jct. to Benld), Litchfield and Madison (Benld to Decamp), Wabash (DeCamp to Litchfield), CB&Q (Litchfield to Sorento, trackage rights on BNSF), and the NKP (Sorento to Coffeen).
The run started in 1983 as a joint run with CNW and Norfolk and Western power and cars, later ran with just CNW power and CIPX hoppers until 1995. 1996 the Decamp connector was built (and at Sorento too) and the train began running via Litchfield- which eliminated the traffic snarling runaround/ backup move in Edwardsville where the train got off CNW and on NS.
#1- Illinois Terminal
#2- Chicago and North Western
#3- Litchfield and Madison
#4- Wabash
#5- Burlington Northern (?)
#6- Nickel Plate Road
#7- Norfolk and Western
#8- Chicago Burlington and Quincy (?)
#9- Norfolk Southern
#10- Burlington Northern Santa Fe
Not sure if #5 and #8 are right- but this train used to run past my back yard in Edwardsville, so it’s nice to see it getting some attention!
That is really impressive. I knew this answer too, but only because I saw that coal train more times than I could count. I am still sad that they tore out so much of the old Nickle Platte line after they made the short cut on the BN. That was a really interesting route with some great scenery–for southern Illinois.
I used to watch this train arrive and depart Edwardsville on almost a daily basis growing up- the NKP and CNW tracks ran about 1/2 mile from my house. The CNW would bring the train in during the morning hours and run it through the north interchange onto the old NKP, then the units would cut off, run through the south connector, back up the CNW to the north connector and recouple to the train. After getting their track warrants from the NS dispatcher- the train would head out on the old NKP, snarling up traffic in Edwardsville- much to the dismay of school bound buses and work bound people. The whole thing would be repeated when train came back from Coffeen in the afternoon (but didn’t leave for the mine until 2000-2200 hrs) Thus after UP took over, they helped put in motion the arrangements at Decamp in regards to the current route- which had been taked about for years before that. A few years later UP sold the Monterrey-Decamp stub to NS.
Since the BNSF didn’t come into play with this train until 1996, I have a hard time saying BN or CBQ had any “involvement” with the train. BN and IT used to run a coal train Monterrey-Machens, MO, but never the Coffeen train. Incidentally, L&M also can be taken off the list- CNW owned the Benld-Decamp section, L&M had overhead rights to Benld. Actual L&M ownership started on the south side of Decamp interlocking about 1/4 mile past the WAB/IT interlocker, where their Litchfield line interlocked with the CNW track.
Watching this train in Edwardsville was a lot of fun growing up- I’d see it in the morning riding my bike to school, and again after school on my paper route. Then in the summer when my sisters played softball on the north side of town by the CNW tracks, a late game allowed me to watch the northbound empties thunder out of town under the glow of the ballfield lights. Glad I took lots of pics when I could.
The CNW traffic was pretty sparse- when I was very young CNW was still occasionally running 4 trains a day- the PRMAA/MAPRA and PRGCA/GCPRA. Most of the time though, both were short enough that they were combined at South Pekin with whatever showed up on the BOSPA from Boone (leaving one caboose in the middle of the train, with the other on the tail and 4 units up front)
After the SP got their own line Chicago, the only regular manifest was the BUMAA/MAPRA- not sure why the southbound was blocked out of Butler. Occasionally an SPMAA or SPMAX would show up, as would a Granite City ore train or a Iowa grain train for the Mississippi River barge terminal at E. St. Louis. The only other “regular” train was the PRMAX/MAPRU National Steel unit trains that ran 3 times a week from Granite City to the GT in Chicago- a contract won from the SP (a big win for CNW). Aside from that the line through E-ville was pretty quiet. The best year was 1993 when CNW was running flood detours for anyone and everyone on the SI- I recall seeing a southbound ATSF detour thunder south past the old LeClaire interlocking in July that year- UP detours also showed up when the Missouri River line would flood. CNW did run coal north out of Monterrey too- to Beverly and Cedar Rapids for ADM about once a month.
The NS ran a VERY rare Monterrey II coal train up to Coffeen, something I only saw a couple times. Other than that it was just the tri-weekly wayfreight. It used to go as far as Cowden, but that was cut back around 1993 (the line Neoga-Cowden was abandoned in 1988- I remember watching the scrap rail and tie trains go by Township Park in E’ville) to Donnellson. Mostly just clay cars from a pit near Sorento to E’ville for Richards Brick, a random grain hopper or two from Donnellson, and boxcars from Richards Brick in E’ville- that was it for the old NKP in town.
I see you say you attended SIUE- my mom also went there and got her teaching degree there. I always liked their student union bowling al