Illinois Central branch from Mattoon, Il to Evansville. Long gone (but not forgotten).
Back in late 60’s it typically had 80-100 car trains - one each way daily. The Chicago and Eastern Illinois line to L&N eliminated considerable interchange at Evansville and the train sizes dwindled slowly. By late 80s it was a 10mph line with perhaps 20 cars. Train would go south one day and north the next. Sold to a shortline operator which run it until mid 90s, then abandoned.
As a kid growing up I watched the trains daily and used the tracks as recreational trail to hike, hunt, fish, etc. Great times.
We did the same thing as kids on the GTW mainline. We would cut holes in the chain link fence to get across the tracks to Marquette Park. The local security guy from GTW would be constantly repairing the fence.
The MONON used the K&IT (Kentucky and Indiana Terminal) then L&N to reach Louisville, not L&N alone. K&IT’s big claim to fame was a bridge over the Ohio River that Southern and I think B&O, also used to cross the river.
The locomotive colors come from the uniforms of on-line colleges. The black and gold are obviously Purdue University next to the shops in Lafayette. IU (Bloomington) is red and white, and Wabash College (Crawfordsville) includes grey.
I remember being intrigued by the cover of the August 1965 issue of MR. It featured a picture of model of an Alco painted with Monon’s black and gold color scheme. Didn’t realize until recently (i.e. past year or so) that was the Purdue colors and my youngest is now in his sixth year there.
All of Monon’s postwar streamlined cars were rebuilt from hospital cars built for the U.S. Army by St Louis Car around 1943, retaining (at least initially) the six-wheel trucks. A few other railroads (notably SP) did similar rebuilds. F3s or boiler RS3s powered the trains until the late 1960s, when high-nose boiler equipped C420s took over.
Similar cars were built during the Korean War, many of which were transferred to Amtrak in a GSA move in 1973, where they were rebuilt into baggage-dorms and lounge cars.
So, no brand new streamlined passenger cars were ever purchased by Monon? Was the recent line of Rapido HO scale coaches strictly fictional? I guess so. From a reading of the Monon historical site, it appears that the hospital cars were rebuilt at Monon’s Lafayette Shops. Kinda pathetic.
The Rapido cars are based on the 1954 CCF cars built for CN’s Super Continental, so Monon isn’t the only railroad where the rivet counters will find reason to be disappointed.
I have had a set of IHC Monon Heavyweight cars for years. I was interested in the Rapido streamlined coaches but didn’t want to spend $85 per car. So, I bought a dozen Walthers Mainline Undecorated 85’ Budd coaches and painted and decaled them - six in red and gray and six in black and gold. It will have to do.
