Batavia, IL: Chicago, Aurora & Elgin (CA&E) Power Plant

(Satellite)

Andy Zukowski posted
Power House for the Aurora, Elgin and Chicago Railroad in Batavia, Illinois 1905

Dennis DeBruler: It was the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin (CA&E), https://www.greatthirdrail.org/, not the AE&C.

Dana Larson-Smethurst: Cool! Where was this located?

Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post
Inside of the power house

Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post

Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post

Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post

Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post

Dennis DeBruler answered Dana Larson-Smethurst's question
It appears the land now has a miniature golf course and a swimming pool on it.
 https://maps.app.goo.gl/8PtyZ6zFy9HXKMyp9
[1939 Aerial Photo]

Brush, CO: BNSF/CB&Q Depot & Railyard and Grain Elevator

(Satellite)

Marty Bernard posted two photos with the comment: "Roger Puta was in Brush, Colorado in January 1985 and photographed the Burlington Northern Depot -- another basic CB&Q style depot."

Marty Bernard shared

Jon Roma: That sure looks like the depot that stood at Rochelle until a few years ago.

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Street View, Jun 2023

BNSF not only still uses the depot as an office building, they do a good job of maintaining it. Some of the CSX depots I have seen are a disgrace to the company. Judging from the dishes on the microwave tower, BNSF still uses it. I thought most of the microwave frequencies had been given to the cell phone companies.

Street View, Jun 2023

These two locomotives are old because they have a "standard cab" instead of a widebody cab. And they still have old paint schemes: BN and "swish H1." (A true railfan would tell you which GP models these were.)

Street View, Jun 2023

It doesn't look like the grain elevator is rail served. I wonder what kind of local industry exists around here that they would have a couple of locomotives and a railyard here. Note that the locomotives are also in this satellite view. Since I already had Google Earth fired up, I checked how frequently locomotives appear by the elevator. Locomotives appear in the Sep 2023 and Feb 2021 views, but neither locomotive was green in 2021. All the images before 2021 back to 2005 don't have any locos by the elevator.

Satellite

Note in the above satellite image that BNSF has two routes leaving town towards the east. I presumed that one of them goes East to Chicago. I checked out where the other one went. The other goes North to Northern Pacific.

1902

1902

This image shows how dependent the viability of that grain elevator is on pivot irrigation.

Satellite

Allendorf, IA: 1960-2024 Lost/Wood Grain Elevator

(Satellite)

Ted Braaksma posted three photos with the comment: "End of an era, my grandpa helped build this elevator in the 40s. Controlled burn today, Allendorf IA."

David Hahn: That's a big controlled burn, they got some good training out of that.

Ted Braaksma: David Hahn yeah there were probably 10 local stations there. Lots of water trucks making trips to a water tower

Dan Mathews: No good wood in there to be reclaimed? [That was my reaction as well.]

Ted Braaksma: Dan Mathews oh I’m sure there was.

Dan Mathews: Ted Braaksma shame..big beams I'm sure.

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Street View, Aug 2021

Street View, Aug 2021

Wesley Peters posted

Allendorf, Osceola County, IA.

Farmers Co-op Elevator Co. Built in 1960. No contractor mentioned.

Destroyed via practice burn on 4/28/2024, officially ending the presence of wooden elevators in the county after the first was built 151 years ago. This was the last surviving wooden elevator in Osceola County.

Photographed on 11/20/2022.

Photo courtesy of Wesley Peters.

In the street views I included the storage bins because there are quite a few of them to the north and south of the main elevator.

Satellite

The tracks have been torn up except for the road. At least they have marked the crossing as exempt.

Street View, Aug 2021

The railroad was the Rock Island. In 2005, it was the Iowa Northwestern Railroad.

Cazenovia, IL: GM&O Depot

(Satellite)

Woodford County Historical Society - Illinois posted
Waiting at the Cazenovia Depot!  No date on photo!

Alan Fricker: I think this photo was taken about 1910 or so. The clues are the box cars-they have truss rods with a turnbuckle to tighten once in a while to prevent the cat from sagging in the middle. From the way the sitting man is dressed, it's hard to tell exactly how he's dressed, other than he's wearing work clothes and not his Sunday best.

Richard Fiedler shared

C&A depot Cazenovis IL on the Dwight - Washington branch.

It looks like the depot was north of Main Street and the grain elevator was south of it. The grain elevator did not survive. Probably because this GM&O branch was abandoned around the middle of the 20th Century.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Ross Brocksmith posted

Old GM&O RR Station

Cazenovia

—-

From Grassel’s volumes titled PEORIA AREA NORTH

Imagery via the Ernest Grassel Collection - Local History Collection - Downtown Branch of Peoria Public Library

Richard Fiedler shared

Juliette, GA: 1980s 3.52gw Robert W Scherer Power Plant

(Satellite)

This post was motivated by Roy Risinger's comment on a post: "We have 4 930 mw GE’s where I work all powered by coal." Almost a gigawatt is a big generating unit.

gem
"The plant has four units, each rated at 891 megawatts (MW) and producing 880 MW. It has two 1001-foot [305m] chimneys, the first built in 1982 and the second in 1986. Scherer is the fifth largest electric generating plant in the United States."

 

GeorgiaPower, cropped
They are planning to dewater their ash pond.

Juan Aburto, May 2021, cropped

usgs
"Robert W Scherer Power Plant in Georgia (Plant Scherer) is one of the largest coal-fired thermoelectric power-production facilities in the United States. It is a 3,520,000-kilowatt coal-fired facility that provides electricity for Georgia."
[That agrees with the 880mw/unit figure.]

emcorgroup
It is the largest coal-fired steam plant on the east coast.
[So it should be no surprise that it is a large polluter. There are lots of Google search results headlining that it is a significant polluter. But I don't have the stomach to look at them to see if any of them ranked the plant according to pollution/gw.]

West Bend, WI: Office/C&NW Depot

(Satellite)

Street View, Jul 2019

Larry Foht posted

Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Depot

West Bend

Wisconsin

Larry Foht collection:

Neal Degner commented on Larry's post
West Bend Depot February 1910

Dale Marks commented on Larry's post
Between Washington St and Water St. It's still there, It was located in the old freight yard. Photo from Travel Wisconsin

Neal Degner commented on Larry's post

Doug Mattson posted
Bill Rosenberg shared
Busy day at West Bend on the Air Line, early 1900s.

 

Frank J. Nobile commented on Bill's share
Supposedly, this is the original West Bend depot moved later to the north of today’s location as a freight house.

William Moyer: Frank J. Nobile On the Wisconsin Division, when a new brick depot was built at Crystal Lake, IL, the old wooden depot was moved about 100 feet north and used as a freight house.

1964 West Bend Quad @ 24,000

1937 aerial photo

Vicksburg, MI: 1904 Museum/(GTW+Pennsy/GR&I) Union Depot

(Satellite, 177 photos)

GR&I = Grand Rapids & Indiana

Street View, Aug 2023

Nathan Nietering posted two photos with the comment: "Congratulations are in order to the Vicksburg Historical Museum in Michigan, on the occasion that the Vicksburg Union Depot was just listed in the National Register of Historic Places! the 1904-built depot provided first class accommodations for passengers on the Grand Trunk Western and Grand Rapids & Indiana lines where they cross in southwest Michigan. The GR&I route became Penn Central in the 1970s and abandoned, although a caboose and two freight cars still sit on the old alignment beside the depot. The GTW is now CN and is a busy international freight route. The Union Depot now serves as a railroad museum and is the gateway to the nearby Vicksburg Historical Village. Worth a visit!"

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RuthAnn Brunsting, Aug 2018

Paolia, PA: 1896 Pennsy "Paoli" Tower

(Satellite)

This 1896 tower was built during Pennys' transition between wood and brick towers. That is why brick was used for the first story and wood was used for the second story.

Street View, Jul 2022

 

Robert Wanner posted
Paoli Tower in Conrail days, but original Pennsylvania Railroad electrified trackage still intact. E-44 electric locomotive lettered for Penn Central with a Conrail caboose trailing. Paoli always a busy location with lots going on, right up to SEPTA and Amtrak. Great slide by unknown photographer. Someone will know.

Dale Woodland: Pusher , probably about to cut off.

Rick Schoch: Dale Woodland you're right. I never actually saw an E44 pushing, although I did actually see them attaching one MUd (I assume) with a U25b at 52nd St. during PRR days from an inbound Paoli Local. I was young and didn't have my crappy camera on me LOL.

Tom McNasby: I saw this photo before i remember it stating it was the fall of 1977, Also, who would have imagined in less than 4 years all electric freight operations would cease and by the mid 80s all freight east of Paoli would be gone.

According to some comments, the bay window was removed before the tower got hit by a derailment.

Ryan Cornog commented on Robert's post

 

AltoonaWorks posted

5/2024 - The PRR interlocking tower at Paoli still stands.  We saw lots of towers still standing on a recent trip from Harrisburg to Boston.

www.AltoonaWorks.info

Jim Kelling shared

Paoli Pennsylvania (PRR tower)

Dennis DeBruler: Found it: https://www.google.com/.../@40.0431807.../data=!3m1!1e3...

In the east coast, if you don't have to deal with trees, then you probably have to deal with fences. The tower is near the upper-right corner, and I included a Pennsy positional signal on the left side.

Street View, Jul 2022

Diagram via RedOverYellow

1965:

rrpicturearchive, Photo by Thomas C. Ayers
WIL-ALT-65. Here is an original photo that I took while riding in a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train from North Philadelphia to Harrisburg during August of 1965. Shown here is the PRR's PAOLI Tower, as well as a yard full of commuter trains of various makes and models.

Another example of the positional signals.

ThePositionLight_1, 1 of many photos of the signaling equipment controlled by the tower.
The tower was built in 1896 on a 4-track mainline, and it was designed to be the terminal for commuter service. "Later, in 1915, the busy line was chosen to be host to an experimental 11kv, 25Hz overhead electrification scheme." It was built as a mechanical interlocking and upgraded to a "state of the art US&S Model 14 Electro-Pneumatic machine" in 1929. The fourth track was removed in the 1960s.

ThePositionLight_2, 1 of many photos of the interior of the tower

Darren Reynold posted nine photos with the comment: "PRRs 'Paoli' tower    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."

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The SEPTA yard behind "Paoli" tower is now gone

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This has only one new photo. But I repeat the photos because this time he is finally providing some information, including credit for the photos. Also, some of the comments are very informative.

Darren Reynolds posted seven photos with the comment: "PRRs "Paoli " tower     Paoli, Pennsylvania"

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"Paoli" tower is still open, One of only a few open..

The tower lost it's bay window from a derailment in the late 60s..

Photo by: Michael (No Date)

Michael Quigley: My Dad worked here ae a block operator ( tower operator ) in the early 70s.

In this shot, you can see a lighter color of bricks. This is where a boxcar went through the wall in a derailment. I believe it was 1972.

I used to have some pictures my Dad got from a guy who was photographing the wreck..

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The Paoli yard on Oct. 26, 1976 the tower is on the left.

Photo by: C.H.Geletzke Jr.

Michael Quigley: I remember as a 11yo boy when Mom would drive me here to see Dad. They still had the MU yard there and you had to walk over around 4 or 5 tracks to get to the tower.

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The helper returns to do it again as it passes "Paoli"

tower on Oct. 26,1976

Photo by: C.H.Geletzke Jr.

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"Paoli " tower on Oct. 26,1976

Photo by: C.H.Geletzke Jr

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The model board at "Paoli" tower

Photo by: Michael Brotzman (No Date)

Salvatore Della Pia: No.2 and No.3 track and No.3 storage (west end of interlocking) removed between the switched for the new station to be built. No more Duck under track or Hill track those switched were pull when I was still dispatching for Amtrak.

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The "Bryn Mawr" tower Model board (Not original) was brought over after a fire. Now it is controlled at "Paoli " tower.

Photo by: Michael Brotzman (No Date)

Michael Quigley: I worked with a guy at Amcrash in the Signal Department, and he stole the original model board out of Bryn Mawr tower after it was closed. Probably still has it! He also got the Armstrong Levers from Baldwin tower when the closed it...

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I'm not sure what thus is called it was in "Paoli" tower..

Photo by: Michael Brotzman ( No Date)

All images from North American interlockings States A to Z and Canada.

Salvatore Della Pia: This the retired catenary power board that each tower had one. They were retired when the power directors. 30th St or Harrisburg took remote control. Both are not in Wilmington at the present CTEC.

Michael Quigley: I believe this board and the shut offs are for the catenary to turn off power by sections.

Michael Quigley: They also had a very large Power Directors room in 30th Street Station. I got to see it a couple times back in the mid 70s when I would visit me Dad at Penn Tower on the 4th floor of 30th Street Station. It was right across the hall!

Michael Quigley commented on the first photo
Michael added 12 more photos in the comments

Ryan Cornog commented on the 5th photo
This is from Christmas Eve last year [2023]. I was the last trick train director for 18 years.