The Seymour Branch

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Who really owns the Seymour Branch in Illinois between Champaign and Seymour?

The signals are maintained by CN but it is listed as a NS branch line.

Also does anyone know why the switch from this branch line to the former Wabash was left in even though the tracks were removed years ago?

The signals in Champaign at State Street on the west side are maintained by CN, but the signals on the east side are maintained by NS. But there is only 10 feet of of former Wabash track left east of State Street. This line used to go all the way to Sidney, Illinois but that line was pulled ages ago and is now a spur in Urbana.

If CN is the owner, then they have to use the switch off the Champaign line onto the NS Mansfield Branch, just to reach their own rails.

So who is who here?

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@JOHN_RICE As far as I’m aware, and Im 90% certain, that the line is owned by CN but used only by the weekly NS Urbana Local (via trackage rights). Not sure why CN wouldn’t just sell it to NS. Also, just for reference, line is abandoned past Plastipac

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Strange. Maybe CN still sees some kind of potential there.

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I guess it depends on contracts agreed on in whenever.
NS probably do not want to buy the line; the upkeep etc. for a weekly journey.
CN possibly have to keep the line open because of a long ago contract with NS.

David

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I think Office got it right. I was consulting a book that I own titled A Railroad Atlas of the United States in 1946. It shows a jointly run set of trackage between Champaign and Seymour. The line was used by the former Illinois Central Railroad (IC) and the Illinois Terminal Railroad (ITC). Today, Canadian National (CN) owns the former IC, and Norfolk Southern (NS) owns the former ITC. So, it would appear that the branch is owned by CN with trackage rights provided to NS.

Rich

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The line is signaled as far as Staley Road. Then it is crossbucks out to Seymour where it becomes exempt. The tracks are in the weeds out to White Heath.

I did not know ITC had rights on this line but it makes sense as by the end they were mostly a rights operation. I knew they used to go through here and that NW (now NS) bought them in 1980.

It is just funny how in that one crossing in Champaign there is about 50 yards of official NS labeled track with a signal, but it ends abruptly 10 yards past the signal.

It appears that NS pulled up the tracks the rest of the way a few years ago, but there is a stack of replacement sections stacked in the grass nearby. So I guess NS pulls up into the CN yard north of town and then backs in and out of the Seymour Line customers.

Someone told me ages ago and I don’t know if it is accurate in that the Monticello Railroad Museum wants to (someday) run their Polar Express trains all the way into Champaign and back using that same line. I guess if the rails stay in the weeds then anything is possible.

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NS came in earlier this year and removed their small section of track at State Street. The signals were also updated and the switch for it removed. The crossing is now CN only.

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John, I’m not completely sure of any of this because it sounds like maybe some things have changed since the aerial photography on Google Maps was updated. But here’s what I know.

When I lived in Champaign around 2005, the Seymour Branch was CN and the Wabash line was NS, and they did not share any track at all. The CN served Kraft and whoever else out of Champaign yard, and the NS came from Mansfield to serve The Andersons west of town and Solo Cup in Urbana. Between State Street and the CN mainline, there were two parallel tracks less than a block apart. The NS line went straight across the diamond and also had a connection to the CN main in the northwest quadrant. The Seymour line turned south at Market St. and tied into the CN main at a switch near the Washington St. underpass.

There was a connection - essentially, a left-hand crossover - between the two lines east of State Street, but it was not used, just like the connection between the NS and the CN main in the northwest quadrant of the diamond.

What that meant was that the CN job pulled out of the Champaign yard, across the diamond, past the switch, stopped on the mainline to operate the switch, then reversed and shoved back onto the Seymour branch. There was actually a holding signal (a dispatcher-controlled block signal, i.e. a CTC control point with no switches) two miles south of the diamond, so that the dispatcher could let them make this move without giving them main track authority all the way down to Tolono.

The whole arrangement was pretty inefficient. In the 2010’s they must have come to an agreement for CN to use the unused connection between the NS and the CN main in the northwest quad of the diamond, the unused connection between the NS and the Seymour branch east of State Street, and the short stretch of the NS line in between the two. This lefts them pull directly out of the yard and get to the Seymour without stopping and reversing on the main track. Then they removed the part of the Seymour branch east of the newly-utilized connection.

Not sure what else might have changed since then, but I’d be surprised if either railroad had given up their exclusive access to any of their customers on their respective branches.

Dan

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Basically, NS (former Wabash) used to have a spur from State Street that connected with the former IC just north of the former IC Station. NS trains used this connector to reach their rights they got from Illinois Terminal. NS had been pulling that out over the last 10 or so years, but they left about 8 feet of it east of State Street, which created an unusual crossing signal situation.

NS owned the south track of the crossing, so the signals were theirs, CN owned the north track, which was the Seymour Branch, so they owned that signal on the north side.

So my post was that it appears that NS finally removed the south track and the signal they had to maintain for about 100 yards of track they never used because they access the Seymour Branch on the CN ROW.

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Your message confuses me a little more because the CN owns the Seymour branch, not the NS. (See, for example, this STB decision on discontinuing service past Bondville). The track that you are describing as being removed is the one that CN used to access the Seymour branch from its main track until about 10 years ago, when they started using the short stretch of the Wabash “main track” from Randolph to Walnut.

Dan

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It is confusing because its the result of so many mergers, reorgs and line consolidations.

But let me take a shot at it.

The IC used to reach the Seymour Spur, which was originally part of the Havana District for the IC by a spur that ran from their yard north of Downtown Champaign, down North Street, which crossed the Peoria & Eastern, (former CCC&StL/NYC) now the NS Mansfield Branch.

The Wabash had a branch line that came up from Sidney, Illinois to Urbana and was aligned right next to P&E, crossed the IC just north of the original Central Depot and connected to that IC line between State and Randolph Street. The Wabash also had a freight depot in Champaign with a small spur that ran right next to the IC to the south at Washington & Market.

The Illinois Traction (forerunner of the Illinois Terminal) ran tracks up Neil Street and had their power plant and shops between North and Tremont Street.

Norfolk & Western bought out the Wabash and took over the Sidney Branch. They also bought out the Illinois Terminal which had trackage rights on the Havana Branch when they stopped city service and went all freight in the 1950’s.

IC disconnected the Havana District at White Heath and it just left the Decatur District the rest of the way, which Illinois Terminal used for their customer AE Staley. Now that NS owns the ITC they assumed those rights across the Havana and Decatur Districts. CN eventually took the Havana/Decatur District out of service (past Seymour) as NS reached Decatur from a different direction.

So NS didn’t need to keep that line that ran from Urbana anymore, they had taken over the former NYC line through town, and took up the former Wabash except in Champaign.

IC took out the spur down North Street and moved their connection to the now former Havana Line using the spur that had been used to interchange with the old NYC (now NS).

NS kept the former Wabash line seperate because now CN was using the former spur to the old Wabash freight house as a connector to reach the mainline going south.

Move forward to today. CN doesn’t need to move freight in and out from the south over the former Wabash spur. They now have direct access to their yard using the former NYC and taking it to the yard to the north.

I think (many moons ago) the Wabash used to back up a passenger train into Central Station for big football games, but I don’t have that info in front of me.

NS owns the former NYC line through town, so they moved the Sidney Branch east and connected it to the NYC in Urbana.

When NS consolidated the former Wabash and NYC lines, this left this little spur and switch between State and Randolph which had become an “island” between 2 CN owned tracks.

This is where I was confused on why NS owned 1 signal and CN owned the other at the State Street crossing.

That is a lot of words on the why. I recommend you look at various historical maps of Champaign in 1920 and 1950.

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@JOHN_RICE I followed most of that, very informative, thank you for taking the time to type it out.

So when the IC line along North Street was removed, both the IC (and any trains using the ITC trackage rights) maintained access to the Seymour branch via the little bit of the old Wabash west of the IC mains, i.e., the track that has been removed over the last 10 years. Right? Any idea why the stretch of the Seymour branch between the Wabash connection and the NYC crossing was kept in place, and why the crossing was converted to a switch? Turned out handy in the end, but was it used in the intervening decades before ~2013?

Thanks,
Dan

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Well I have some thoughts, but nothing definite.

When I visited the Monticello Railorad Museum west of Champaign many years ago, one of the employees/volunteers mentioned casually that they were hoping to run their Polar Express train from Monticello Station to Champaign and back.

For that to work they would have to use the rails between White Heath all the way into Champaign. The museum maintains the rails up to White Heath for car storage, which brings them some revenue.

The rails from White Heath to Seymour are still there, rusty, in the weeds or under grass in places.

Also of note, NS didn’t remove the entire spur, only the parts that required crossings to be maintained. Also the switch to enter the CN mainline was removed. So there is a curve of track between Market Street and the CN mainline still there, rusty and collecting weeds, but with decent ballast.

Again, this is just a guess, Monticello Rail Museum was planning to use the switch and the spur to get to a Champaign station. Either they didn’t get a grant or some kind of funding to execute the plan and NS didn’t want to pay to maintain the crossings anymore if no one was going to use them, so they pulled it up.

I don’t have the records, but I would hazard a guess that the rails were pulled but the ROW was not formally abandoned. The curved track was left behind in the event the museum does have the dough to restore the connection.

Again, I don’t know this for a fact, it just seems logical considering the comment made years ago.

Another possible angle is IDOT and Amtrak have been funding studies to restore the former Peoria and Eastern route in Illinois for some kind of passenger rail service. The idea being to connect the Quad Cities, Peoria, Bloomington, and Champaign. If Champaign was used as the service city that means they would need to bring the spur back into service. I seem to recall NS has made atttempts to have parts of the line abandoned, but IDOT wants to keep it for now.

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My wife and I took a day trip a few years back touring the area around Monticello and White Heath. I was specifically interested in determining if the rails were still in place east of White Heath. They aren’t. A group named Trails Of The Grand Prairie owns the right of way between the east side of White Heath and a point about a half mile west of Seymour. Recent aerial photography on the Piatt County and Champaign County GIS Parcel websites clearly show that the rails and road crossings have been removed. The rails to trails group has cut a narrow path thru all the brush along the old track center line, but they have not completed any significant work building a permanent trail.

Also, a few years back NS finally ripped up the rail banked P&E line between Bloomington and Mansfield. Not much chance of any passenger service to Peoria being routed via Champaign at this point. There were some proposals about ten years ago to use NS’ ex-NKP Peoria line to connect Peoria to the Chicago-St. Louis corridor. As you might expect, nothing concrete has materialized out of any of this.

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Under the Rails to Trails Act, a rail-trail ROW can be reclaimed for railroad use if the land is still public and not privately owned.

But if the ROW was formally abandoned and put up for private sale and the deeds have changed, then any attempt to re-rail them would require compensation.

I think when the Amtrak study was announced, people scoffed because NS has torn out much of the line already and it would need a total reconstruction. Personally I don’t think it would ever happen.

Thanks for the update around White Heath, I havent been through there in some time.

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I get the sense that restoration of the former Peoria and Eastern route is a long shot, but hey, you never know. It sounds like a losing proposition, but one that would dwarf other money losers in Illinois. Would be a convenient connection for some.

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And thus we have an entire subindustry within Real Estate devoted to Titles for lands and the myriad of uses for the land both above and below the surface.

Within the rail industry there are many situations where one carrier owned one track of a parallel track set up with another carrier owing a second track and in some situation an additional carrier owning a third track. Then the carriers generate an agreement on who will do what on the tracks collectively and individually - and then we are off to the races.

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So actually, I found out I was wrong. CN co-owns the part of the NS line in between the diamond with CN Champaign sub and the spur. CN runs 1 daily train each way (called HUMCO) from the Champaign yard to the Plastipak factory (specifically the factory at 3310 W Springfield Ave, since there are multiple Plastipak factories in Champaign), stopping at Kraft-Heinz (1701 S Mattis Ave) in between. From the start of the line to Plastipak, the line has crossings with lights, bells, and gates. Between Plastipak and the town of Seymour, the tracks are out of use (but technically not abandoned), and exempt. Most grade crossings contain only a crossbuck, but one or two have lights, and one has a bell. Between Seymour and White Heath, the line is abandoned completely. In and past White Heath, the line is used by the Monticello Railway museum. Sorry for providing bad info

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