Springfield, IL: Wabash Coaling Tower

(Satellite)

Richard Fiedler commented on a posting concerning a "Doodlebug"
Different view. Both at "Shops" yard in Springfield IL at the depot there.

I assume it is somewhere in this yard, but I can't figure out where.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Humboldt, TN: New Tyson Foods/Andersons Elevator

Andersons

Andersons is reducing its footprint in Iowa (Agfax, Andersons), but increasing its service in Tennessee. It just built a 2.9M bushel elevator near Humboldt, TN that is served by West Tennessee Railroad. (GrainNet) It looks like Google caught it early in its construction. I'll have to check again in a year or so to see what the finished elevator looks like.

Satellite

Mar 2025: It looks like Andersons has sold this elevator already to Tyson Foods. I'm now getting a 404 for the above "Andersons" link.

Satellite

I wonder why they used square, instead of round, silos.

Street View, Jun 2023

Sandoval, IL: Embargoed by CSX

Bryan Monaco posted

Bryan's comment:

Not abandoned yet.... But Embargoed. The CSX (B&O) line going through Sandoval, IL. is out of service. The crossing gates have been removed and the flashing lights have been turned inwards. There are signs at the crossing that the line is out of service. It went out of service last year.

Judging by all of the small bins and a truck parked by one of the big bins, the town's elevator is still viable as a feed mill.

Watseka, IL: Union Depot: C&EI and TP&W

(Satellite, the depot was moved away from the UP/C&EI tracks.)

Bill Molony posted
Union Depot in Watseka was shared by the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad, whose tracks ran north and south, and the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad, whose tracks ran east and west.
The depot was in the southeast quadrant of the intersection.

Tim M. Hickernell Looks like they saved it, according to Google Earth, but moved it back from the intersection about 1/2 block. Nice building. I love the diagonal symmetry so that it could serve both sides equally.http://mw2.google.com/mw.../photos/medium/97533896.jpg

I saved a satellite image because it shows a prefabricated diamond ready to replace the current one.

Satellite

Update:

Steven J. Brown posted
Watseka Union Depot served the Toledo Peoria and Western And the Chicago and Eastern Illinois/MoPac. The depot was moved away from the tracks in 1990 and is used as offices. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. My cousin Jerry is leaning on a phone pole in this view. Watseka, Illinois - August 1979.
Steven J. Brown shared

 

Andy Zukowski posted
Toledo, Peoria & Western Depot at Watseka, Ill., in May 1960. Photo by I.W. King and from the collection of Joel King.
Richard Fiedler shared

Brian Knight commented on Steven's share
1990

Dave Arganbright posted
Found this interesting B&W shot in my files of the 765 at Watseka in May 1980 as photographed by Homer Hill.
Harold J. Krewer Oh, just noticed this was the freight move and not the fantrip. My bad.
Larry Burk Running west on the TP&W. In the days before they moved the depot back away from the tracks
[I wonder if the FWRHS earned money for pulling freight.]

John Stell posted
TP&W-C&EI depot at Watseka.  Date and photographer unknown.  John Stell collection.

Note the train orders signal and iron man in the above photo. The depot was in the southeast quadrant, so the iron man is for the TP&W. The upper iron man arm is for the front-end crew and the lower one is for the caboose crew as illustrated by this photo.

Steven J. Brown posted
Grabing orders at Watseka, Illinois on the Toledo, Peoria and Western - September, 1980.
Dennis DeBruler shared
Joe Boscoe: Nice shot. TP&W pics are few and far between. Grabbing orders not seen very often either.

safe_image for ??? [I kept getting "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded"]
Watseka before the depot was moved.

Roger Kujawa posted two images with the comment: "Train Depot & Iroquois Hotel Watseka Illinois IL 1911 Postcard."

1

2

Chicago & Alton Depot

Bill Molony posted

Mike Girdwain Believe the railroad just recently knocked this brick station down because it was too close to the tracks.
Bill Molony Yes, this station was razed just a few years ago. I was involved in the effort to save it, but we just ran out of time. Union Pacific would not allow it to be restored and preserved on-site, and the cost of moving it was well in excess of $100,000. UP will be double-tracking through Wilmington in the near future as part of the high-speed rail project, and this station was in their way.

Kokomo, IN: NKP(Clover Leaf) vs. NKP (LE&W) and LE&W Freight House

Junction: (Streetview; Satellite)

Freight House: (Satellite)

Alan Culley posted
A sad looking sight, looking west from the CL & LE&W diamond at Buckeye St. in Kokomo. These look like dead tracks as they haven't seen use for quite some time. I used to walk across and throw the target for what ever movement there was.
Ed Bell The tracks are still there, so there is still hope!
Alan Culley To the west several grade crossings have been cut or paved over and bridges removed. To the east it has fared better with the Central RR operating to Marion.and the NS.

This junction is the lower-left corner of the triangle of tracks in the middle of this map. See Water Tower for details concerning the map.

INDOT 2005, zoomed

Update:

Steven Grigg posted
Every since our home flooded last August I've had trouble finding things that I know survived. Most of my railroad photo collection did and I knew I had photographed the operator's little office at Kokomo where the LE&W Dist. crossed the Clover Leaf. Well, I finally found those shots that I've been wanting to post for Alan Culley. I took the two photos April 27, 1985. 

Steven Grigg posted
This is the second view I took of the Operator's building at Kokomo, IN. The double-tracks are the LE&W running north & south. The interchange track is behind the building that connected to the Clover Leaf. 

Joseph Tuch Santucci posted five photos with the comment: "In Kokomo, IN there were once three railroads that ran through town. This was in addition to two inter urban lines. The three railroads crossed each other and manual crossings at grade. This series of photos are from the crossing between the LE&W/NKP/N&W/CERA Indianapolis-Michigan City line and the T&StL/NKP/N&W/NS/CERA/back to NS Cloverleaf line that ran from the original namesake cities of Toledo, OH and St Louis, MO. Both lines have been out of service through this crossing for well over a decade. Both lines were leased out to the Central Railroad of Indianapolis for a time. The Cloverleaf is still active a little east of here beginning at Grand Jct where it connects to the former PRR Logansport-Richmond, IN line east to Marion, IN. The IMC is out of service but mostly intact and now owned by Kokomo Grain. CERA gave up service and the lease on the portion they operated  well over a decade ago. Kokomo Grain acquired it from Kokomo south to Tipton to protect its  business interests but does not use it.  The Industrial Heritage Trail is immediately adjacent to it through town so getting photos is extremely easy. From this crossing west through much of town is the Cloverleaf trail. There are plans to extend it completely through the west end of town and to Michigantown, IN with long term plans to extend it further to Frankfort, IN. All trains had to stop and a crew member had to unlock and manually operate the signal here and proceed. All photos from August 20[, 2021?]."

1
Looking east on the Cloverleaf. Grand Junction, the PRR/Cloverleaf crossing is a few city blocked east of here. The IMC is actually single track but the track closest to the camera is actually a short siding and lead into an industry off to the right. NS actually resumed control of the Cloverleaf for a time after CERA gave up the lease on the portion between Kokomo and Frankfort.

2
Looking west on the Cloverleaf. The rail ends about two city blocks west of here and the Cloverleaf trail heads west on the old right of way. The end of the track is near The Train Exchange hobby shop.

3
Love looking south on the Cloverleaf. Off the south end of the siding here is the switch to go into the industry.

4
There were lights on the signal at one time.

5
The lever to operate the signal.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Joseph's post
The route of the LE&W through Kokomo was east of the one that went to Michigan City. This is a copy of an INDOT map that I had marked up with yellow lines to highlight the LE&W routes when I studied the history of the NKP.
https://maps.indiana.edu/.../Railroads_Active_Abandoned...
(The blue line is the original NKP mainline and the green line is the Cloverleaf.)

Dennis DeBruler commented on Joseph's post
I accessed this 1953 topo map to see how the railroads crossed each other in Kokomo. I have zoomed out to capture the two Panhandle routes in this area. I'm dismayed that the railroads are labeled with 1970s names instead of 1950s names. Topo maps normally don't have a mistake of this magnitude.
1953 Danville Quadrangle @ 1:250,000
In a 1956 map, the routes are labeled New York Chicago & St. Louis and Pennsylvania.

LE&W Freight House

In 2009, locomotives were parked on the siding.

Street View, Jun 2009

Now there are no locomotives, but the loading platform has been transformed into outside eating.

Street View, Aug 2019

The freight handling part is now a brewery.

Eric S, Feb 2021

It appears to have survived the Covid-19 impact of eateries.

Greg Jones, Aug 2021

And the office building part still seems to be an office building.

Street View, Aug 2019

Trevor Whited, Jul 2022
[This is another historical society that does not understand the difference between a freight house and a depot.]

Kokomo, IN: Grand Junction Target Sign: NKP(Clover Leaf) vs. Pennsy (Panhandle)

(Satellite)

Alan Culley posted
The target signal at Grand Jct. in Kokomo.Mitch Mitchell I remember that one, that was at the PC and NW Clover Leaf diamond.Mitch Mitchell This was once made up as a smash board but in the mid 1970's OB, B. Tidler Sr. and I had to rebuild the entire fram work, it got smashed one day by the PC.train.

Alan Culley posted
This is to the east of the LE&W diamond and is the CL-PRR diamond looking west. I imagine this signal is no longer used since nothing heads west. The Central uses the connector to the old PRR, now Winamac Southern to get to Logansport.

Alan Culley posted
Looking east from the CL-PRR diamond. The connector is visible in the background.

There would be no tower at this junction because it was not staffed. If the stop sign was over a train's track, it would have to come to a stop, the head brakeman would have to get out and turn the sign. (Assuming there was not a train currently on the other track.) All trains would have to approach the junction prepared to stop until they could see the current position of the target sign.

According to Google, these pictures are current:

Streetview

This junction is the lower-right corner of the triangle of tracks in the middle of this map. See Water Tower for details concerning the map.

INDOT 2005, zoomed

Chicago, IL: First (and Second) Chicago Tribune Building (Tribune Tower)

Richard Pitchford posted
The first Chicago Tribune building, south east corner of Dearborn and Madison, 1869, Chicago.

Since they built their new building in the 1920s, I wondered if this building was still around in 1938. The middle of the following should be Dearborn and Madison. It looks like this building as been replaced with a taller building.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Historic Chicago posted
The Tribune Tower under construction, Michigan Ave (1924)
Mitch Nurczyk My son is now working on the tower as it is turned into condominiums.
It’s still one beautiful building! Years ago I worked on the NBC building across the river from the Trib. and marveled at the beautiful stone work of the upper floors.
My daughter worked for the Trib. for a short time too.

Historic Chicago posted

The Tribune Tower under construction. (1924)

Photo from the Vintage Tribune

Fawn Doucette commented on Historic Chicago's post
It’s my view every day. My favorite building. One of the reasons I rented this apartment I use to work in the restaurant in the building Howels and Hood that’s when. I fell in love with it.

Historic Chicago posted
Downtown Chicago with the Tribune Tower under construction. (1924)
Historic Chicago posted again

Downtown Chicago with the Tribune Tower under construction. (1924)

In 1924, the Tribune Tower was under construction, adding one of the most iconic landmarks to Chicago's skyline. The tower was the result of a global architectural competition sponsored by the Chicago Tribune, and the winning design, created by New York architects John Howells and Raymond Hood, was inspired by Gothic cathedrals. The tower's facade, adorned with ornate stonework and spires, gave it the appearance of a medieval European castle. During construction, the steel frame rose high above Michigan Avenue, drawing attention from residents and visitors alike. When completed, the Tribune Tower became a symbol of the Chicago Tribune's influence and a key feature of the Magnificent Mile.

Eric J. Nordstrom posted

seldom seen image of howells and hood's tribune tower nearing completion in 1924-25.

photographer unknown.

courtesy of bldg. 51 archive.

Ralph Leoni commented on Eric's post
reliefs added ‘28

Eric J. Nordstrom posted

1930's original kaufmann fabry street view photographic image of howells and hood's tribune tower (1925), located at 435 n. michigan avenue, chicago, il.

graham, anderson, probst & white's wrigley building (1924) to the west and walter w. ahlschlager's medinah athletic club building (1929) to the north.

courtesy of bldg. 51 archive.

William D Brown: Look how dirty the Tribune building is from coal soot after only a few years

Same with The Wrigley Building