Big Four Depot: (Satellite?)
- Orange: the Big Four's Egyptian Line
- Yellow: the NYC/Big Four Terre Haute to St. Louis route
- Blue: the Pennsy branch from its Terre Haute to St. Louis mainline to a junction with the IC a little south of Decatur. This is probably another example of a railroad getting access to the Decatur market and serving farm communities along the way.
The crossing of the two Big Four routes, (orange and yellow) was the Midland Junction. The crossing of the Terre Haute-St. Louis route (yellow) and the Pennsy (blue) route was also controlled by the Midland Junction Tower. I don't know how the crossing of the Pennsy (blue) and Big Four Egyption Line (orange) was controlled. The Pennsy Interlocking Diagrams are very incomplete in this region.
The Big Four probably came north before it headed to St. Louis so that it would be around 15 miles from the Pennsy mainline between Terre Haute and St. Louis. The Milwaukee Road used to have its own route between Terre Haute and the Chicago area --- Chicago, Terre Haute & Southeastern. But rather than spend money on maintaining it, they arranged with NYC/Big Four to use their Terre Haute-Paris branch plus the northern part of the Egyptian Line to access the Chicago area. Later, Milwaukee switched again and used the Chicago & Eastern Illinois between Terre Haute and the Chicago area. That is why, today, the Canadian Pacific has trackage rights on CSX's L&N/C&EI route north of Terre Haute.
Penn Central abandoned the PRR branch southwest of Paris because it was redundant even in the horse & wagon days with the NYC/Big4 route between Paris and Terre Haute. Remember, before the Staggers Act was passed in 1980, the ICC ruled on rates and abandonments as though they were still in the horse and wagon days. Conrail abandoned the remaining Pennsy spoke and the two Big Four spokes that were not used by Milwaukee. Actually, remnants of the Big Four remain in town to serve a small yard to the west and a Cargill plant on the south side. When Conrail was split in 1999, CSX got the two NYC/Big Four spokes. But CSX abandoned the Egyptian Line north of Danville because they already had the former L&N/C&EI Danville to the Chicago-area route. (Norfolk Southern got the northern end of the Egyptian Line. And KBS operates a couple of remnants in between the segments that NS and CSX retained.)
Judging from a satellite image, the yard stores covered hopper cars that are needed to serve the Cargill plant. I wonder if Cargill has its own switcher in this town because CSX hates doing industrial switching. Or maybe there is a short line operator that owns these remnants and that has trackage rights for a short distance on CSX's Egyptian Line route.
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| Satellite |
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| 1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP |
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| Satellite plus Paint |
According to Google, Cargill now owns the small elevator on the west side. I have never seen Cargill own such a small elevator before. The former Pennsy route explains why the older concrete silos are on a slight angle compared to the compass grid. They would have been built next to Pennsy's tracks.
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Pennsy Depot
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| Roger Kujawa posted RPPC postcard VANDALIA TRAIN DEPOT railroad station & street PARIS ILLINOIS 1908. Post card I saw on eBay |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on Roger's post It looks like it was south of Elizabeth Street between Boydston and Jefferson Streets. 1966 Paris South Quad @ 24,000 |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on Roger's post A 1939 arial photo agrees. https://clearinghouse.isgs.illinois.edu/webdocs/ilhap/county/data/edgar/flight10/0bgj04011.jpg |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on Roger's post X marks the spot. https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6054387,-87.704308,635m/data=!3m1!1e3 |
Big Four Depot
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| Andy Zuykowski posted Big 4 Depot in Paris, Illinois. 1910 (Photo by C.U. Williams) Richard Fiedler shared |
I spent some time looking for the depot on the aerial photo and the "downtown" building that we see in the photo in street views, but I could not determine where the depot was.
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