Gilman, IL: My Photos

Gilman, IL, sets at the crossing of the CN and the Toledo, Peoria & Western railroads. The CN line is the former IC mainline between Chicago and New Orleans. Plus the IC had a branch from here that went to Springfield. Looking north and south from 3rd Street.

Photos of the large Cargill grain elevator and more photos of this elevator are in Gillman Grain Elevators.

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The grain elevator above, just tot he right of the left signal, is the Cargill elevator that you also see in the following photo that is looking north from the US-24 crossing.

A close up of the yard that has "Train 3" coming north on the IC mainline. The tracks curving to the right are the interchange tracks with the TP&W and go to the branch to Springfield. Note the brick building behind the grey building. That used to be the depot, but it is now part of the railroad yard that is in the area between the interchange tracks and the mainline crossing.

I drove down to 2nd Street to get a better shot of the depot, but it was still  bad shot.










So I drove around town trying to find a better view of the old depot. This view is looking west from the intersection of Front and Douglas. The two tracks in the foreground are interchange. The track further back in front of the new signalling equipment is the lead to the branch line.

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Looking at an aerial photo of the yard area, the branch lead was closer to the depot and there was a small turntable and roundhouse in the yard area.

I also took a picture towards the south from Front and Douglas. Beyond the substation, you can see the Cargill grain elevator. The clouds are less than ideal, but at least it wasn't raining. I would hit torrential downpours north of Champagne.

Since an access road in the southwest quadrant was not posted for no trespassing and it looked like a road, I used it to photograph the old depot that was next to both mainlines.

And it looks like they are getting ready to replace the diamond.

Old and new signaling equipment. As you can see in the above picture that has a northbound train, the new signals are operational. I noticed that they left part of an old signaling bridge still standing because it was supporting some cables. Since cables are being replaced by fiber optics, I'm surprised that this equipment was not also removed.

Bill Molony posted

Update: A combination of Bill's and other comments established that this is Illinois Central Gulf GP38AC leading a mixed manifest freight in December of 1974 past the TP&W diamonds and depot. It is interesting that there are still train order signals standing in the 1970s.

A comment of interest:

Robert Thompson Gilman is where the line branches off that goes to mt pulaski. that line eventually comes into Peoria. we would use it at work for plastic shipments. it was slower than the 7 year itch and the railroad had it down to a science to screw up. one time our car of plastic didn't show and didn't show . we traced it. the car was in Springfield. your guess is as good as ours as to why.