IC used to have a four-track mainline the Chicago area to the Kankakee area. Now they only have one track, and CN has trouble giving Amtrak the right of way. And Norfolk Southern probably regrets tearing up its Wabash Railroad route to Chicago from downstate Illinois.
Not only did the IC have four tracks, they had crossovers along the route so that they could move a train from one track to another. See Jon Roma's comment below for the location of these crossovers. We can see the turnouts for a couple of the crossovers in Roger's photo that would have been controlled by this tower.
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| Marty Bernard shared his post of a Roger Puta photo IC Train 53 the City of Miami led by E-unit 4040 approaching AX Tower north of Manteno, IL on July 22, 1962. I bet your first reaction to this photo was the same as mine -- I hope Roger Puta took one with the train closer. But then I realized, no, it's really great just like it is. And no closer one found yet. Jon Roma: The interlocking plants at Richton, Monee, Peotone, and Manteno were converted to CTC during the mid-Sixties; I presume those structures were demolished sometime thereafter. There are still a couple ex-IC towers standing farther south on this line that were remote-controlled to CTC in the early Fifties. The locations where towers still stand along that section of track are Otto and Ashkum. |
I think the white rectangle near the right edge of the above photo is a road side and the purple car to the left of the tree is on that road. So I think the blue rectangle below marks where the tower was.
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| 1953 Peotone Quadrangle @ 1:24,000 |
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