In the September issue, the article on CSX’s woes had a map shoing the disposition of the former conrail system and who took what.
The map also shows lines of both NS and CSX that pre-existed the splitt of Conrail.
One of those lies is an Norfolk Southern line from Chicago to St Louis through Gibson City, with a jog over near Decatur.
What is the ancestory of this line? Is it Wabash? I had thought the old north south wabash line in Illinois had been abandoned?
That is the Wabash line. The map was taken from the September 1998 Trains and they did not update it. I believe it is still used south of Gibson City. To the north it is used by the Bloomer Line to Strawn, torn up to Manhattan (ILL) and Metra has it the rest of the way to Chicago.
Thank you very very much
NS runs their trains down the CN (Illinois Central) to Gilman and then on the old St. Louis line to Gibson City and then regain the Wabash line.
I was just wondering today if NS regrets tearing up that line. The CN limits them to 4 trains a day on the trackage rights.
There is talk about NS upgrading the old NYC line from Hammond down thru Schneider and down to Danville to connect to the Kansas City line. My guess is that freight classified at Elkhart for western connections at Kansas City has to take a pretty long trip to make it there.
The old Wabash line from Chicago down to Decatur…actually Bement would look pretty good in the future, at least on paper.
They wouldnt even have to run into Chicago, go down to Schneider then across the Kankakee Belt line to to old junction with Wabash at Reddick.
ed
Thanks for the additional info on the IC line.
As far as the line abandoned, I never had a real good idea of it’s exact location, I always thought it was further towards the west of the state, but I think that is because I had an old travel distances map, and I think the line drawn from Chicago to St Louis was more a symbolic one, than an actual intent to locate the rails. (I guess anyway)
If you look at all the rail line abandoned or shortlined by NS that at one time was either Wabash or Nickleplate, you could just about have yourself a nice little railroad
BTW MP173,
I just came across this while looking up some other things, you might find it interesting, as well.
I was surprised that as much out of state coal arrives via means OTHER than rail (barge, etc)
If you look at all the rail line abandoned or shortlined by NS that at one time was either Wabash or Nickleplate, you could just about have yourself a nice little railroad
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Be hard to get from one section to another, though.
The folks that acquired the Wheeling and Lake Erie were on the right track and seem to be one of the more successful shortline operators. R. J. Corman is operating only part of the line west of Lima, I understand they hardly ever go west of Coldwater, OH, anymore.
Yeah true, especially where they made sure to pull up the rail.
but, hey, with a few choice penn-central abandoned segments, I’ll bet you could get creative.
hey, they have the computer game ‘Railroad Tycoon’,…they should do a varient called “Railroad Salvage and Surplus” Where the objective is to unmothball select lines that have been forsaken, negotiate with existing RR’s for continuity, gamble on selling cartain lines as scrap for operating capital, with the ultimate objective to become a class one and sell to UP…
They could call the game “Rail America”…[}:)]