La Moille (Lamoille), IL

20141017-20 0173 Not every day is sunny

La Moille, IL was incorporated in February 25, 1867. It had a population in 1900 of  576 and in 2000 of 773. (GenealogyTrails and Wikipedia) The railroad, CB&Q/Illinois Grand Trunk Railway, that went through the town was completed on July 23, 1872. The town was in a natural gas belt and "quite a number of her citizens heat and light their houses with this gas." Note the use of the present tense in the quote. It was written in 1906. (GenealogyTrails)

The railroad was abandoned in 1985. See the first part of Friction Bearings for closeups of the old wooden caboose. Fortunately, people are in the process of preserving the caboose and the depot. You can see in the second photo that they are working on the roof. The caboose was placed on the old right of way, so the RoW ran north of the depot.

Photo by Ray Tutaj Jr. from Grain Elevators, used with permission

A neighbor explained that ADM bought the grain elevator and tore it down. Fortunately, Ray Tutaj Jr. caught a picture of it before ADM tore it down.



Some depot photos from when people still used horses. The engines are not just steam engines, they are old steam engines. For example, they are still using slide valves. In fact the first photo is a 4-4-0 so it was probably built in the 1800s.

Photo by Jayson Tuntland from Depots

Photo from Depots

Update: John Joseph Walsh III posted 14 pictures of the restored depot. He reports they are still working on the caboose.

George Bower posted four photos with the comment: "Lamoille Illinois."

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Mark Llanuza posted
This view of the CB&Q station i took back in 1977 ,I went back again to line my old photo back up again in 2005 ,the main line is now gone only a caboose on display at la Molillie IL.
James L. Ludwig North Central Illinois Model Railroad Club is now located there-they have volunteered to restore the depot and waycar.
Dennis DeBruler An excellent example of a win-win.

Bill Molony posted three photos with the comment:

Every so often, we hear about a former Burlington Route wood waycar in north central Illinois that at one time apparently belonged to the Blackhawk Railway Historical Society. As much as we'd like to claim it, we don't own it.
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 14570 was a typical design wood waycar (that is what the Burlington called their "cabooses") built in the 1880s. After being retired from active service, 14570 ended up in private hands. The caboose eventually ended up in the town of La Moille, Illinois, located on one of the Q's now-abandoned branchlines that used to blanket rural Illinois. It sits in front of the town's 19th-century CB&Q depot, miles from any active railroad lines.
Sometime in the early 21st century, sources on the Internet started attributing ownership to "Blackhawk Chapter NRHS." We have no paperwork or any other proof of ownership, so it's current status does not involve us. It briefly appeared for sale on an equipment broker's website. A 2014 article in the local paper has the caboose and depot being worked on by volunteers from the community.
We will continue to follow up on this mystery...

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Dennis DeBruler posted three photos with the comment:

I have not noticed jump-form bin construction in the Midwest. But I was unaware of it and not looking for it either.
While I was checking my notes on La Moille, IL, concerning the CB&Q waycar (caboose), I noticed that the grain bins used jump-form construction. ADM bought the elevator and tore it down. The first photo is from a Mark Llanuza posting, https://www.facebook.com/groups/370207820054225/permalink/459320094476330/I found a 4/12/2005 Global Earth image that confirms there were gaps between the bins. It looks like they made the bins larger as they gained confidence with the construction technique. The depot is the building on the left side of the image. I picked the 4/12/2005 image because it had good resolution. The elevator is still intact in 2010, but only the jump-form bins are still standing in a 2011 image, and everything is gone in 2013.

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Anthony M Miranda posted
Preserved CB&Q caboose and depot at Lamoille, IL. on the long gone Mendota to Denrock Line in July of 2016.

Trenton Dominy: The building was bought by a local model railroad club and has been in a slow progression of restoration since 2015.

The story I was told one of the members had a heart attack a few years back and much of the work stopped on it but it’s still getting attention.

The caboose is a definite candidate for restoration but more funds are needed and people to work on it.