Back in the day, Ladd was served by an interesting combination of major railroads: C&NW, CB&Q, MILW, and NYC. Other railroads (IC and RI, not to mention the LaSalle & Bureau County) came close. I’m pretty sure there were coal or mineral deposits in the area back when the lines were built.
What I’m curious about, though, is the use of the lines in the area as a bypass route. I seem to recall hi-wide loads on CNW being routed down the Spring Valley Subdivision (now truncated and called the Troy Grove SD), as a barrier-free route to get loads around Chicago, suggesting that the interchange must have been with NYC and successors. Can anyone verify, clarify, or elaborate?
Carl, wasn’t that NYC line part of what’s known as the Kankakee Belt? The RI and NYC (into the early PC era IIRC) had a run thru between Silvis and Elkhart using the Kankakee Belt, interchanging at Depue, IL.
Trip report: interesting and frustrating all at once.
Keep in mind that the goal was fried chicken. The name of the place is Rip’s (it was good, and worth the long stand in line).
We got to Ladd, and immediately saw a string of sand cars (near a grain elevator, ironically) on a spur off the BNSF, the only remaining railroad in town (which doesn’t look at all like a well-traveled route). I was able to check out about two-thirds of these cars before being stopped by underbrush. Got a few good renumberings, and some new cars with lot numbers and dates to check out as well.
It was still too early for the restaurant, so we went off to Princeton, then Mendota, before returning. Only one train was seen on BNSF, an empty CPOX string of coal gons (my favorite…those things unload in my old stomping grounds in Michigan).
At the restaurant, I transcribed my sightings from the previous day into my “paper trail”. The new sightings were not transcribed, pending their being checked out on the computer (which I had with me, but didn’t take out while we were at the table).
We got out of the restaurant, spending a lot less than I thought we would. We went back up to Mendota, where the gas was least expensive, and filled up (it was about 30 cents a gallon cheaper than it is around here). We then continued on up to Rochelle. I checked out the ATCS board in the shop, and we left right away after checking out the cars at the industrial area. When we left town, an eastbound was moving out. Since w