Decatur, IL: Wabash Freight House

Kenny L Watson -> Follow the Flag Wabash Railroad

Kenny's comments:

This pic of the past, taken at the main street crossing in Danville Illinois, was posted by another member a while back. I just happened to be here and thought I'd get a present picture taken from about the same spot. Sorry it's not a day time pic.

That is taken from the north side of main street looking south . Tilton yard would be about 3 miles on west of here. 

Note the building on the right of the watchman's tower has the sign "Wabash Freight House." So we learn from this photo that the Wabash freight house was on the southeast corner of the Main Street crossing. Note the line of boxcars parked at the freight house.

That car must be from the 1930s because an aerial photo indicates that Main Street was grade separated by 1941.

1941 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Update: The above was not the main freight house in town. 

History of the Heartland posted

1978 aerial of the Levee District area around the former Wabash stations.  At bottom right labelled "N&W Depot" is the former passenger station, no longer active at the time of the photo.  This building has been repurposed as the Wabash Antique Mall.

The long building running diagonally across the bottom of the photo is the former Wabash Freight Station.  The right side of the building held the administrative offices where less than carload freight shipments were managed.  The long extension to the left is the dock area where boxcars would be unloaded for transfer to trucks for the "last mile" to the final destination.  The Wabash freight office closed in 1963 when the railroad exited the less than carload business.  At the time of the photo it was used by Sol Tick & Company for scrap operations.  The building was later razed.

In the center of the photo the circular area still visible as an imprint in the earth is the location where the Wabash roundhouse had stood for 97 years between 1856 and 1953.  The track stalls so deeply impacted the earth that even today the ruts are visible. By 1978 the turntable, which survived the razing of the roundhouse in 1953, had also been removed.

Three Class I railroads were still very active at the location at this time:  The Norfolk & Western operated over the former Wabash trackage running east-west (top to bottom); the Illinois Central Gulf ran north-south (left-right) on trackage that dated back to the very beginning of that railroad; the Baltimore & Ohio yard on the right side of the photo connected to tracks running east along Eldorado and then Route 36 out of Decatur, linking to Indianapolis and the east coast.

Photo: H&R

Terry Howley: B&O yards are to the right center of this photo , Southeast of WABIC tower , along with their turn-table which is still standing just west of the Jasper st underpass . Amtrak used the N&W depot from July 1, 1981 until July 10, 1983 when service to Decatur ended
Richard Fiedler: Adam White actually 5 class one railroads operated there then: The N&W, B&O, Illinois Central, Illinois Terminal (via trackage rights on the N&W), and Penn Central (former Pennsylvania RR via IC trackage rights)..
Leonard Perlmutter shared
Looks like that old dinner that Sol Tick scrapped there at the old frieght station is there. I remember the folks at Monticello wanted acesss to it, but don't know if it ever happened.
History of the Heartland: Richard Fiedler this is partially correct. By the time of the photo the Penn Central had sold their Terre Haute to Decatur line to the Wabash Valley shortline. Their successor Conrail sold the Peoria to Maroa section (north of here) to the Illinois Terminal soon after.
Nick Fitzgerald: Do you happen to have an easy to read map of the tracks entering and leaving the Dearborn Station in Chicago.
Dennis DeBruler: Nick Fitzgerald I just uploaded C&EI1964ChicagoDearborn-300lg.pdf to the files section of this group.