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| Frank Smitty Schmidt posted Morris IL, Nov 1953. A Rock Island coaling tower over the main line getting taken down. Jack Franklin An example of why some coaling towers are still standing. Too much grief to bring them down. Also another one over the former C&NW tracks at Clyman Jct WI. Gary Sprandel Supposedly the detonation had been carefully set to blow the support legs in a manner that would drop the tower neatly to the side of the line with minimal disruption to traffic. At the last moment the RI promotions department film guys got the bright idea that it would look even better if some of the left over explosives were to be rigged at the hoist house at the top of the tower and when the charges were set off much to the horror of the the guy on the film crew the "show" charges countered enough of the actual demolition charges to drop the entire tower right on the tracks. Harold J. Krewer Gary Sprandel is correct. This did NOT end well for the railroad or the demolition company. Double-track main blocked until the main structure could be broken up and hauled away. IIRC in the meantime they did manage to get some traffic through via a siding off to the right in the photo. Harold J. Krewer Thirty years later, the SP/SSW learned this same lesson the hard way when they tried to blow an old RI coal dock on the Golden State Route. Moral of the story: Rock Island coal docks were built tough!! [Note the water tower on the right.] Bob Frasco posted with a wrong comment |
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| Frank commented on his posting You can still see traces of it today. [Satllite] |
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| Barriger |
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| Barriger |
I found that location south of the old strip mine that is northeast of town. It must be the tower in the upper-right corner of this old aerial. I'm not sure which of the "blobs" along the track would be the water tower.
Given the water tower on the right in the photo, I thought the coaling tower was south of the depot, which now appears to house the Grundy County Corn Festival. But Frank corrected me. That was an old grain elevator.
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| 1940 Aerial Photo from ILHAP |
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| 1940 Aerial Photo from ILHAP |
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| Frank Smitty Schmidt commented on his above posting This is the old elevator by the depot in Morris. |
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| Bill Molony posted This is the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad passenger depot in Morris, as it looked in about 1907. |
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| Raymond Storey posted MORRIS ILL |
The elevator was still standing in 1976.
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| William Shapotkin posted On May 16, 1976, photographer Joe Pierson visited the Morris, IL station on the Rock Island. The structure (still-standing in 2021 to the best of my knowledge) still served four psgr trns a day at the time of this photo. Wm Shapotkin Collection (shapotkin153) Dennis DeBruler: It is interesting that the wood grain elevator made it all the way into the 1970s. |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on Raymond's post It looks like the main part of the depot has been preserved. |
William Shapotkin posted three photos with the comment:
The last stop Joe McMillan and I made our way back to Chicago from Morton, IL was the Morris station on "The Mighty Fine Line." As it was raining terribly, only got shots of the south side of the station (and the nearby EJ&E caboose). One has to ask, had the ROCK joined Amtrak (thus dumping its last two intercity trains on May 1, 1971), would all these stations have continued standing? One can only wonder and be thankful that this fine structures are still with us today.William Shapotkin Photos dated April 30, 2023.
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| 1940 Aerial Photo from ILHAP, it was a little northeast of Morris, IL Look in the upper-right corner by the surface coal mine for the coal tower. |
These photos are from a posting of 50 pictures documenting the demolition of the Rock Island coaling tower.
(Update: a previous posting of the "BOOM" photo had some comments that explain why the tower dropped onto the mainline instead of to the side as planned.)
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| a Note the temporary track being built on the left. |
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| b They have already removed the unloading shed and elevator. They have installed braces on the left so that it won't fall on the temporary track. The "blob" in front of the water tower is a shovel with the bucket facing us. You can see the operator leaning out of a window watching the train. |
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| c There are several photos of the workers removing the track from under the tower. I chose this one because of the wrecking ball in the background. |
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| d Notice Mr. Hands-on-Hips manager |
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| e Judging by the way he is walking on the ties near the right side of the photo, I don't think he gets out of the office very often. Of course, it is a big deal to shut down the mainline for this long. On the middle column on the left side we can see white spots where they have already drilled and installed explosives. |
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| f Getting ready for the "energetic felling." |
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| g It is not just the tracks that they are taking out of service. It looks like the signalling department is taking advantage of this outage to replace a crossarm. |
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| h Moving the equipment and men away for the big boom. |
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| i BOOM |
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| l It fell awful close to the temporary track. It looks like decades of coal dust is escaping. |
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| m Now all of the trains that had been held up can creep past the tower starting with the passenger trains because they were still considered the highest priority in 1953. |
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| n Is he swinging the Bucyrus-Erie bucket sideways as a wrecking ball in a confined space? Or is he just moving into position to dig out some debris. |
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| o It does seem they are using the bucket to help chew away the concrete wall. |
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| p Finally, we get to see the wrecking ball in full swing. |
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| q And the shovel doing the job it was designed for --- moving debris. (This is the last image in the collection.) |
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