Montpelier, OH: Wabash Roundhouse, Coaling Tower and Depot

Jim Etchie shared
Wabash Roundhouse Montpelier OH 1946

Jim Etchie commented on his posting
Here is a wintertime shot of the Wabash Railroad Montpelier Ohio Roundhouse, probably in the sixties.
Jim Etchie posted
Snow-covered Wabash roundhouse & turntable, Montpelier , Ohio-- Long ago !! 😪
Richard Fiedler shared
Dennis DeBruler shared

Satellite

At the bottom, you can clearly see the land scars for three stalls. And in the upper-right corner you can see an arc from the old turntable.

Update:

Jim Etchie posted
Wabash yard, Montpelier, Ohio ( Circa 1950s photographer unknown,)

I believe the building fragment on the left is the roundhouse. The coaling tower would have been about here. The depot still stands.

Satellite

Update:  Note the older cars in this photo. I assume the two story building is the depot because it has the awning to protect passengers from the rain and snow. The one story building in the background was probably a freight house. I wonder when these buildings were torn down and replaced by the current building. Neither Goggle nor Bing have street views from Depot Street.

Randy Saunders posted
WABASH RAILROAD DEPOT Montpelier OH

It looks like this photo has the new one built between the above two buildings and the two story building is still standing.

Jim Etchie commented on Randy's posting
Here is another one of the Montpelier Ohio rail yard yard and Depot

Jim Etchie commented on Randy's posting
Wabash railroad Roundhouse and turntable at Montpelier Ohio

1961 Montpelier Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

Veedersburg, IN: Junction Tower: NKP(Cloverleaf) vs. Big4/P&E vs. CA&S/C&EI

We have seen the Cloverleaf and Peoria & Eastern before. And I have seen mention of  Chicago, Attica & Southern (CA&S) before. But what amazes me is that the SPV Map indicates the CA&S was originally the Chicago & Eastern Illinois. It turns out the C&EI had considerable trackage in northern Indiana, not all of which was connected with its main route out of Chicago.

Andy Zachary posted
Story about the closing of the tower in Veedersburg, courtesy of Steve Krueger.
Arthur Shale Loaded cars delivered by NKP to NYC in 1943 10; received 97. Loaded cars delivered by NKP to NYC in 1953 114, received 320.
Jim Sinclair I'm guessing there was much more interchange traffic going on when the CA&S was still in business? Arthur Shale gives some interesting statistics from 1943 and 1953 above, which is heavier than I thought it would be!

Mark Egebrecht When we're the other 2 lines abandoned? I believe the P&E was filed for abandonment by Conrail in March, 1982, but the diamond was still in place and the signals still lit in 1983. Clover Leaf was filed for abandonment from Linden to Cowden in March, 1987.

Andy Zachary Thank you Jim. The thing that's always been curious to me was, Veedersburg's only real claim-to-fame is that they provided a significant portion of the bricks used to build the track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Now, from what I've been told, the majority of Vburg's bricks for that project came from the brick plant south of town that the Clover Leaf and the CA&S had access to - not the one on the west side of town that the P&E served. This makes no sense to me. The P&E literally ran right beside the Speedway. Heck, they even ran passenger specials to the track on race day! So what routing would take the bricks from Veedersburg to Indy via the Clover Leaf? The only logical one was that they went up to Frankfort, then interchanged with either the Monon or the Pennsy down to Indy.

Andy Zachary Apparently you CAN find everything on the internet. On the website www.firstsuperspeedway.com, there's a link to the September 19th, 1909 copy of the Indianapolis Star. In it, it states "Two car loads of bricks arrived yesterday over the Big Four on special trains." It states later on in the article that, "The bricks will be shipped hereafter at the rate of twenty cars every day. The Veedersburg plant has increased its working force in order to supply the demand at once."

The CA&S was abandoned ca. 1945. The NKP acquired the Clover Leaf in 1922 and N&W merged the NKP in 1964. "The NW abandoned the section of the line between Frankfort, Indiana and Metcalf, Illinois in the 1960s." [AbandonedRails] Below I used yellow for the CA&S, blue for the NKP/Cloverleaf, and green for the Big Four/Peoria and Eastern. I added a red rectangle around the Big Four Depot.

Satellite

Urbana, IL: Big Four/PE Railyard, Roundhouse, Shops and Depot

Railyard: (see below for satellite)

Depot: (Satellite. 50 photos)

Brehm, Kara, “Peoria & Eastern Railroad, 1866,” ExploreCU, accessed March 30, 2017, http://explorecu.org/items/show/202.

The Big Four opened a yard and shops on the east side of Urbana in April of 1871. This location now houses MTD's garage and offices, but before that there were machine shops, switching yards and a roundhouse capable of servicing 15 steam engines. In 1897 the shops underwent major renovations. A smoke stack for a power plant was erected, becoming a landmark in the Urbana area. The stack was 133½ feet tall and 13 feet square at the base. There was also a water tower with a capacity of 100,000 gallons. [CUMTD]

See Champaign for more discussion of rails in Urbana.

Satellite

Bob Kalal posted
Big Four in Urbana Illinois

Roger Kujawa posted
RPPC Peoria & Eastern Railroad Shops Urbana, Illinois. New York Central Cars circa 1924.
Roger Kujawa shared
Roger Kujawa shared

1940 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

1940 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

University of Illinois Archives, circa 1910- 1935

Marty Bernard posted three photos with the comment: "3 Peoria & Eastern, Urbana, IL. Roger Puta took these 3 on the same role.  The slide mounts are stamped by Kodak as processed in January 1972.  Roger wrote nothing on the slide mounts.  But they are interesting."

1
1. "Road to the Future" Caboose 29417

2
2. GP7 5671 with 2 different logos

3
3. "All Persons Are Warned" Sign

Marty Bernard posted
3 Early NYC Geeps
NYC 6066, 5608, and 5700 (GP9, GP7, and GP7) at Urbana, IL on the Peoria & Eastern, in July 1964. Roger Puta photo
Joseph Tuch Santucci: The 5700 had dynamic brakes but a small fuel tank.
I can recall the 6066 from my days as a kid seeing it go past my house on the Joliet Branch. Always had a thing for numbers and that pattern stuck out in my head. Can even remember it in lightning stripes. Looks pretty fresh new paint on it here.
Kevin McKinney: The units are so clean it looks like a publicity shot!

.

Depot

Andy Zukowski posted
New York Central Lines Depot and Train, Urbana, Illinois. 1914

Mike Friedman: That's well before the current brick depot (which has been called The Station Theatre since 1972) was built (1923, I think). And before the Wabash built on the south side of the building.

Grayson Warbritton: Big Four/Peoria Eastern at the time of the postcard. By the 1930s the P&E was a separately owned subsidiary of the New York Central.

Ward Vaughan: Ran through Farmer city, Harris, Mansfield and Mahommit on the way to Urbana. Saw one freight run though Mansfield in the early 1950s

Richard Fiedler shared

The depot is extant, and it is now used as a theater.

Street View, Sep 2015

Molitar Junction: BNSF/CB&Q vs. UP/C&NW vs. Aban/M&StL

(Satellite) This is a junction around which a town never grew.

M&StL was Minneapolis and Saint Louis, later C&NW.

Roger Holmes posted
A C&NW northbound at Molitor Jct., date unknown. For those unfamiliar with the area the Burlington Northern's track is to the right. For those familiar with the area, it is still the Burlington Northern's track to the right...the line from Peoria to Galesburg via Yates City. Molitor Jct., on Peoria's west side, was named after Val Molitor, a dispatcher on the C&NW. © Roger A. Holmes.
David Jordan Matthew Erickson M&StL Jct. (later renamed Molitor Jct.) was built post-merger by the C&NW to eliminate an awkward and time-consuming see-saw for coal trains running out of Middle Grove to C&NW's S. I. Line that required movement via P&PU between Iowa Jct., the C&NW at Darst Street and the Adams Street Line out to the S. I. at Peoria Jct. The connection was laid in September 1964. The connection also proved handy for C&NW Granite City-bound ore trains, with one derailing 51 of 117 cars near Hermon (between London Mills and Abingdon) on November 2, 1967. 

(I'd guess negotiations with the CB&Q about crossing its Galesburg-Peoria line at grade and installation of interlocked approach and stop signals took awhile.)

The ex-M&StL main to Bartlett Yard continued to be used by Cedar Lake (Minn.)-Peoria manifests 19 & 20 until April 1968, and local trains through November that year. The segment of the ex-M&StL from the new C&NW mainline connection to Iowa Jct. was abandoned at this time, and track removed about 1970.
Paul Ümläüt Tincher I vaguely recall trains coming off the old M&STL over Creek Road at Molitor Jct when I was a kid. Years later, many of the old heads I worked with out of South Pekin said the Elm Mine runs were good jobs...except for the cringe-inducing 2% downhill grade (steepest grade on the C&NW when still in service!) down Maxwell Hill. A bad wreck occurred there in the early-mid-80's, but I have no great knowledge of it. Just know a coal train ran away because the engineer of the lead consist didn't charge the air up enough before leaving the top of the hill.
Roger Holmes I was a clerk and extra board dispatcher out of South Pekin from 1974 to 1979. Generally speaking power would leave South Pekin and go to Elm Mine to collect the loads. Figuring the time they would be ready to depart there pusher power would be ordered, unless the local was in the area, to go to the mine, couple onto the train and bring it down Maxwell Hill with the road power trailing. Once on the main the road power would now be on the head end, etc. Generally officials would have the crews swap, since the pusher crew would have more time left and could make it to Nelson without risking running out of time, or at least as much. The pusher crew, now going to Nelson, would generally fight this. The bad wreck that Paul mentions above happened when I was working there. It happened on the coldest night of the year, something like 20 below. The pusher power cut off and dropped the brakeman off to flag the BN, and went up and coupled onto the train and started to ease it down the hill. I never did hear the cause of what happened next, if someone forgot to turn an angle cock or repump the air but almost immediately crews on both ends of the train knew that they had a runaway! As they hit the bottom of the hill the pushers and 15 or 16 loaded cars leaned way to the right then slammed back onto the rails and held. The next 36, 38 cars piled up, even wiped out the BN's bridge. My mind has lost track of the details over the years as to car count, etc. Both crews got time off for this very costly derailment, except for the brakeman who had been left to flag the BN. I wanted to drive over and get photos but due to the extreme cold, it would not start.
Howard Keil That would explain several sets of wheels and axles in the big ditch on the north west side.
David Jordan The C&NW derailed 52 cars of a 90-car coal train at Molitor Jct. the early morning, January 16, 1977. Was enroute from the Elm Mine to Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
David Jordan The Elm Mine was accessed via a spur west of Trivoli. It opened in 1968 and closed in 1984.
David Jordan Jan Smith The Rapatee Mine at Middle Grove re-opened in 1975 (after dormant for seven years), so C&NW's Elm Sub served two coal mines for nearly a decade. 

Todd Pendleton commented on the above posting
 Here's a BN coal empty at the same location on the BN line. June 1990.

A 1962 Don Ross photo shows all three bridges. From left to right are C&NW, CB&Q, and M&StL.

Paul Umlaut Tincher commented on the above posting
Sorry for the pic of a pic, but I found it in an old issue of the CNWHS mag, Winter '93 issue.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Update: A Flickr photo that shows both truss bridges.

Springfield, IL: Allis-Chalmers then Fiat Allis then nothing

(Satellite)

Springfield Rewind shared
Allis Chalmers looking southwest from above Bunn Park - Aug 3, 1966
Tom Gillespie FYI bottom of photo identifies this as 1953.

I added a yellow line that used to be part of the route of a GM&O/Chicago & Alton industrial spur. Allis-Chalmers main plant in Springfield was bounded by the GM&O route on the north and east, Adlai Stevenson on the south, and a different alignment of 6th Street on the west.

Satellite

Lost Illinois Manufacturing posted
The Springfield, IL Allis-Chalmers plant at 3000 S. 6th St. where in 1962 6,500 employees made tractors (crawlers), graders,bulldozers and snow plows.

3D Satellite

Note the church near the lower-left corner of the photo. It still exists.

It is amazing how much the plant grew since 1939. In 1939 it appears to have been just one long building along 11th Street. Judging from the roof line, that building was replaced as part of building the larger facility. But pollution caused by that building was not removed by the rebuilding because today that land is vacant even though the rest of the property has been developed. Vacant land in the middle of a development normally indicates that it is "brown land." That is, it is too polluted to develop. I noticed in the satellite image that it is also literally brown land.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

American-Rails.com posted
Soo Line caboose #24 brings up the end of a freight north of Schiller Park, Illinois on June 24, 1979. Warren Calloway photo.
Jon Pope: Beautiful brand new AC HD41-B bulldozer.
Ray Weart: Yeah that's not Schiller Park but the north end of the Wheeling, IL passing track. That's Wick's Furniture in the background.
Dave Hawley: A shiftable load next to the caboose.....not good.
Tony Burzio: A bulldozer chained to the deck is immobile. They mean shiftable loads such as pipe or lumber.

Bill Molony shared
Steve Rippeteau: Shiftable load without bulkhead next to the occupied caboose is verboten.

The following are more photos from the Lost Illinois Manufacturing posting that relate to this plant.
Janice Graves-Thompson My Dad retired from there, sure do miss him.......wasn’t the 11th street side where they welded?
Lynn Ford I didn’t realize Allis Chalmers was that big of a company.
Ted Oberhellman Sure was back in the good old days!
John Oberhellman Dad got transferred a lot. St Louis, Milwaukee, St Louis, Appleton, Aurora.

a

b

c

d

e

This photo is not related to this plant, but I could not resist it. A-C made many different products during its prime including farm equipment.

f

Springfield Rewind posted
Completed tractors in the Fiat Allis south yard - July 8, 1983
Lisa Woodson Marcure My dad worked there and retired earlier in 1983. He walked into work that day and they said signed this paper and retire or lose half your pension and stay. So my dad retired after 38 years.
Dlr Richards the beginning of the end for fiat allis,in 1985 i was hired by norman leavy auction company,my job to catalog and list 90 years worth of production equipment that sold for pennys on the dollar of its worth,more disheartning the thousands of men i seen whon put in any where from 20 to 60 years ,grown men crying as they watched each piece of tool,equipment get auctioned,the only one who won that day,norman leavy auctions everyone else came out a loser,especially springfield

Springfield Rewind posted
HD-31 crawler-tractors inside the Fiat-Allis building being prepared for shipment on September 24, 1981
Mick Evanich: I worked there until 1985 until they closed.
Bev Surratt Powell: The forklift has the the original AC logo.

Locations video @ 7:10

New Paris, IN: Junction Tower: NS/Big Four vs. Aban/NS/Wabash

(See below for satellite image)

Josh Lemler posted

Here we see Wabash Railroad Steam Locomotive 2806 leading a freight train at New Paris, Indiana crossing the New York Central on an unknown date.

Photo By Harry Zillmer.
Collection Of Josh Lemler.

This town has grown a lot with industries since 1961. I added a red line to a current satellite image to show where the Wabash came through town.

Satellite plus Paint

The tower was in the southeast quadrant. So the train in the photo is eastbound. There were connections in the northwest and south west quadrants. Since the connections where on the west side, I do not understand why there are so many signalling pipelines going to the east.

Update:

Carl Venzke posted
Wabash F7a 1141A has a westbound freight in tow passing the New Paris, Indiana tower and depot. Judging from the vegetation it is late summer and probably in the mid-1950s. To the left beyond the maintenance building we see an interchange track with the Big Four (the Winona Ry. was gone by this time) and couple of people by the Big Four track. The factory is belching black smoke, in those days that was a sign of a good economy. Train has a cut of hopper cars and all the buildings appear to be well maintained. The Wabash is long gone, but the Big Four line survives as part of NS. Photo is courtesy of M. D. McCarter"

Eau Clare, WI: Junction Tower: UP/C&NW vs Aban/Milwaukee Branch vs. Uniroyal Industrial Spur

(Satellite)
At first, I thought this was a junction tower between C&NW and Milwaukee, but the buildings on the satellite image did not match the Uniroyal buildings in the photos. Then a Google search revealed that Uniroyal is now Banbury Place (satellite). Judging from the signalling pipelines leaving the tower in Bill Edgar's photo, this tower controlled the turnouts and crossovers for the industrial spurs into the plant. The oldest images that Historic Aerials and Google Earth have is 1998, so I can't confirm the location of this tower. Not only have the plant spurs been removed, the crossovers are gone.

Another photo by Bill indicates that there was a Milwaukee Road branch in addition to the industrial spurs to the plant behind the tower. The RoW of that branch is probably the Chippewa River State Trail in this area.

The Railroad Depot Page posted

Lynchburg, VA: CSX/L&N Coaling Tower and Interlocking Tower

Coaling Tower: (3D Satellite) 

Interlocking Tower: (3D Satellite)

Ed Sharpe

1984 Lynchburg, Virginia

Old Chesapeake & Ohio Railway coaling tower that was used for steam locomotives.

Photograph by Ed Sharpe — at Lynchburg, Virginia .

 

Marty Bernard posted
C&O Coaling Tower, Lynchburg, VA on March 13, 1976. That's C&O GP9 6252 built August 1957.
  Bill Howes photo
Marty Bernard shared

Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's post
It is still standing:
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.398007,-79.1217675,85a,35y,39.49t/data=!3m1!1e3

Tim Shanahan shared Matt Swart's post.
This was taken at the CSX Lynchburg, VA yard. The yard is still in service but the coaling tower isn't.
Thomas Dorman Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, built in 1948 by Ogle Engineering Company of Chicago. Ogle rated the capacity at 75 tons, but C&O called it a 100-ton tower. Similar to the tower Ogle built for the C&O in 1935 at Ronceverte, WV.

Ed Painter posted
I lived in Lynchburg,VA from 1979 to 1988......It had former N&W, Southern, and C&O lines and a lot of action....(it would have been great to railfan except my job had me out of town 80%+ of the time..............however there was great railroad action at most of the places I was working at out of town!).
B&O-Chessie 3804 GP38 Lynchburg,VA Oct 1980

Randall Hampton shared

Street View

Curtis Nicolaisen posted
Along the James River in Lynchburg Virginia.
Ted Gregory: Isn't that where the N&W island yard was located? behind it?

Curtis replied to Ted's question
Yes, Percival’s Island.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Curtis' reply
Percival's island was the information that allowed me to find it.
https://www.google.com/.../@37.4129421,-79.../data=!3m1!1e3