Galva, IL: Junction Tower: CB&Q and Rock Island

(Satellite)

Bob Mattson -> Rock Island Memories
Rock Island crossing diamond at Galva, Illinois. CB&Q main line where the Rock crossed for Midland Coal and the Peoria local.
When the coal mine at Victoria was working it was one train each day, each way. Empties to the mine loads to the Silvis yard. Toward the end the local only ran three days a week and not always to Peoria.
Todd Pearson: After I think 68 it could only get to Lafayette. Before that the end of the line was Toulon. Can't recall when they severed the line from Alta. 
In another group, Marty Bernard added the comment "The lead unit is 105A, a FTA built in 1944."

Bob Mattson posted
Tower, Galva, Illinois where Rock Island crossed the Galesburg to Chicago main line. Tower Board is marked CB&Q RR and CRI&P Rwy. You could look out on the track from Cambridge, Illinois through the window to the right of the board. On this date they were cutting the links from the levers to the switches and signals in preparation for demolition. Board is already dark and the crossing diamond has been removed.

Note the signaling pipelines in this view.

Terry Spirek Flickr
The old CB&Q & RI. Interlocking tower in Galva IL. looking east in 1967.
Structure once stood where the Rock Island crossed over the CB&Q which both are long gone now. I'm sure Chuck Zeiler has a couple of stories to tell about this picture.

The CB&Q route is on BNSF's main route between Chicago and Denver and is still quite active. The Rock Island route was a branch between Peoria and Rock Island.The main purpose of the RI route was to access coal mines.

You can easily see the land scar of the RI southeast of the town on a satellite image. But it is not at all obvious how the RI got through town.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Even though the resolution of the 1938 aerial photos are not good enough to show tracks, they do show right-of-ways. I thought the northwest route of the RI was parallel to the diagonal road. It turns out it was parallel to the CB&Q branch that goes west of Galva. And the RI went east/west through town.

Galva had to be glad to see the RI leave town because it used what is now US-34 west of SE 1st Ave. US-34 traffic used to turn north on SE 1st Ave and then use Chester St. to cross the CB&Q. In the photo below, RI crossed the CB&Q mainline at "A". It crossed the branch line somewhere between "B" and "C." Note the turntable a little north and west of "A".

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

In the photo below, you can see how the RI and the branch paralleled each other out of town until the CB&Q branch turned due West.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

The treeline for the RI extends further than the treeline for the branch.

Satellite

Don Crimmin's Photo

Don's comment:

Here is the power for the Silvis to Lafayette, IL, coal train sitting along the BN mainline at Galva on 8-14-70 with CRI&P GP7 1275 leading three F unit "B"s and with Geep 1327 trailing.

Bob Mattson posted
Inside the CB&Q tower at Galva, Il. For the Rock Island crossing.

Update: since I wrote these notes, I learned how to access the topo maps.

1953 Galva Quad @ 24,000