Saturday, July 31, 2021

Manhattan, IL: 3 or 4 Old Grain Elevators

(Satellite, they are all gone)

Dan Tracy posted
Nice Southbound kicking up the snow going through Manhattan in February of 81. Note the pigs on this train.
Stan Stanovich: ...for what it’s worth Dan Tracy, when I worked out of Calumet regularly late 2004 through spring 2009, the trackage rights over I.C. Decatur-Chicago trains were still running. Though I do not recall his name, I became acquainted with one of the engineers. He told me that prior to the line being severed that there was “talk” of dedicated intermodal service between Landers in Chicago and either St Louis or Kansas City via Decatur. The next thing they knew, the route was cut!!!
Richard Fiedler: Stan Stanovich I was told by a former track inspector that abandoning the route helped N&W “meet their maintenance budget”. Very short sighted in my humble opinion.
Ron Wesolowski: Lots of speculation on that back then... minimal on line business... some curvy stretches that would be high maintenance... Staggers Act was eliminating interchanges.... primary traffic was Ford .....IC had excess capacity with coal falling off other mergers killing off the St Louis interchange for the IC

I'll call the elevator in the distant background the North Elevator and the close one the South Elevator. I think the elevator in Dan's photo above is the North Elevator.
Michael Riha commented on Dan's post
Here's a photo of the tower for reference.

The North Elevator is out-of-frame to the right. The South Elevator is near the center. And near the left is an elevator that is served with a spur of the CM&G.
Dennis DeBruler commented on Dan's post
The grain elevator in the photo caught my eye. It is interesting that it survived into the 1980s. Michael Riha's photo shows that there were at least two elevators along the Wabash track. And this aerial photo posted by Bill Molony shows that another elevator was served by the CM&G.

This photo is also in DeBruler-JunctionTower

The South Elevator is in the foreground and the CM&G Elevator is peaking out from behind the coaling tower.
DeBruler-CoalingTower

Rechard Fiedler commented on a post
In the foreground is a grain elevator but to its left and across the Wabash main is their coaling tower that was demolished sometime after steam was retired in the summer of 1953. Behind the coal tower is another grain elevator on the Milwaukee (CM&G). I believe all elevators there are long gone.

The South Elevator is peaking out over the depot roof and left of the water tower.

The blue, yellow, and orange rectangles highlight the North, South and CM&G Elevators, respectively. Red shows another tall building because it also has a long shadow. But I have not been able to figure out what it was. Did the town have four grain elevators? Since I researched what I had on this town looking for views of the "red rectangle," I learned some other details, from north to south:
Purple: Wabash Depot
Brown: CM&G Depot
1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Friday, July 30, 2021

Marion, IA: Milwaukee Depot

(Satellite, the tracks were north of 6th Avenue and the depot was north of the tracks)

Roger Kujawa posted, cropped
[Roger's post includes some photos of the pavilion.]

Above is from a photo that Roger took of a history plaque on this building in City Square Park.
Street View


Dennis DeBruler commented on Roger's post
The depot was the horizontal rectangle on this map that is a little north and east of "City Hall."
1975 Marion Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

The 2005 SPV Map shows that the route was built by Milwaukee, but abandoned by IC. That explains why this map labels it as ICG.
1982 Marion Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

14 photos of the depot and a caboose display

I couldn't find the caboose on a satellite image because it is covered by trees.
Street View




Hemphill, WV: NS/N&W Coaling Tower

(Satellite)

Steven J. Brown posted
Norfolk Southern C44-9W 9934 (built 2004) at FARM in Hemphill, West Virginia - May 9, 2023.

I Love Trains posted
photo courtesy of Shane Alexander · Norfolk Southern 1101 & 9778 heading east, under the coaling tower at Hemphill, WV.

3:01 video @ 1:28
This is after the train came out of the Hemphill Tunnels.
There is another view at 2:31.




Thursday, July 29, 2021

Blue River, WI: Milwaukee Depot

(Satellite, they did a good job of removing the foundation)

This Milwaukee route is now owned by Wisconsin & Southern Railroad (WSOR).

Sam Carlson posted
MILW Blue River, WI 7-15-74. Ted Schnepf photo.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Sam's post
It looks like it was just west of East Street on the north side of the tracks.
1983 Blue River Quadrangle @ 1:24,000


Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Marshfield, WI: SOO(WC), C&NW Depots and C&NW Roundhouse

WC Depot: (Satellite, the SOO depot has been moved south to make room for the Veterans Parkway.)
C&NW Roundhouse: (Satellite, next to Cedar Ave. and a little north of 8th Street.)

Sam Carlson posted
Marshfield, WI. I think it was a Soo depot, but not sure.
Mike Polsgrove: Definitely the Soo depot. Still stands as a Chinese [actually, Japanese] Restaurant.
Keith Meacham: Nice shot, showing the Hub City Jobbing Company poking up to the right, the square hole in the roof where the Train Order signal WAS (this must be about 1970) and the old Mail Shed on the East End.

Keith Meacham commented on Sam's post
The C&NW Depot in Marshfield. 8 Blocks farther south. This view is from the Matt Holman Collection by his late Uncle, Bob Lotz, looking west about 1950.
[The milk cans are a reminder that dairy farming was important in Wisconsin.]

Keith Meacham commented on Sam's post
If any of you have any doubts that this is the Soo Line Depot, this should dispel them.

Lance Wales commented on Sam's post
My view from July of 1984, early morning eastbound passing the Marshfield, WI.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Sam's post
According to a 1974 aerial photo, both depots were just east of Central Street. I added the blue line for SOO and the yellow line for C&NW.
1979 Marshfield Quadrangle @ 1,24,000

Chicago & North Western Historical Society posted
Someone wanted to see photos of the old roundhouse in Marshfield, Wisconsin.  There are three.  The broad view on top is said to have been taken around 1912.  Neither of the other two are dated and none have any photographer data on their reverses.  One photo seems to show an ash pit before the turntable.
Steve Schafer: Anyone know what year it was taken down? I remember the yard and depot there from the late 70’s but didn’t recall a roundhouse.
Paul Fehrenbach: Steve Schafer I grew up a block from there. Not sure when it was torn down, but an aluminum fabrication factory was there since the ‘60s. [Actually, the Google Maps label says Stainless instead of Aluminum. Maybe they do both.]

Kim Potaracke commented on the above post

I had to get an older topo map to show the roundhouse. Note that it confirms the location of the two depots.
1954 Marshfield Quad @ 62,500




Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Leesburg, FL: Paquette's Historical Farmall Museum

(Satellite)

This is one of those topics for which I took so many photos in the museum that I was intimated by the prospect of discussing the museum. This post has motivated me to find the photos and use them since I spent some time looking for some notes that did not exist.
Paul L Brosher posted
In a museum in Bushnell FL

https://www.stewsihstuff.com/

Fortunately, I used my photo of the flag in my notes about the IH truck plant in Fort Wayne so that I could easily get the date and thus find the folder that has the photos.
20140801 0041

Since I have more upload bandwidth (I clocked 40mbs for this upload) than time, I'm basically doing a photo dump. Having looked at them, I'm disappointed that I didn't get photos of their kitchen display. IH used to make refrigerators in Evansville, IN. Then IH sold the plant to Whirlpool and got out of the appliance business. That plant also made Kelvinator refrigerators for Sears. I heard that Whirlpool closed that plant because of local labor issues.

Fortunately, this video shows the home appliances display at 1:12. I see they made washing machines as well.


The museum also had restored a Ford. If I remember correctly, they restored this for someone else as contract work.

This is at the front of the main building.


I skipped getting detailed shots of the "shiny" tractors because there are so many of them. But I took these two 560s because Stew used them in pulling contests and won some trophies. The above video focused on the shiny tractors, so we nicely complement each other.



On the walls were various posters that IH produced, but these need camera resolution to read, and I can't do that with the blog. But you can see the type of information that they provided to the farmers.

I visited this place in Aug 2014, which was the first Summer after I started writing the blogs. So this was my first exposure to an orchard tractor. That is why I took so many photos of it. The extra sheathing helped keep the low hanging fruit trees out of the tractor.




It is hard to capture how many tractors were in this building.



I was excited to see an M because my Grandfather's brother had an H and a M. Later, after several months of going to tractor shows to get photos for the blog, I realized that H and M tractors are rather common.








Lighting was a challenge sometimes. I didn't notice that I let the camera shake while I took this photo. It looks like a nice summary of the history of IH tractors. Taking a better photo of this poster might motivate me to revisit the museum.

"My dad just spent $4,027 on a set of new Straw Walkers for our combine."
"Gee, my dad hasn't bought a Straw Walker since 1977 when he switched to the Axial-Flow."

An article about Stew's Stuff.




I must have heard the shutter click when I took the above. So I tried again being careful to hold the camera steady. Unfortunately, it still moved. Since 2014, I've learned to change the ISO setting, bought a Vibration Reduction lens and bought a monopod.

Red is the transmission, yellow is the Torque Amplifier and blue is the independent PTO.


This was a "fan" type chopper as opposed to a "lawn mower" type. By Grampa had a MM fan-type chopper.







Then I went across a drive to another building. They have some bigger stuff parked outside.







1970 Scout 800A. Someplace in my 1000s of posts I've talked about how my Dad used to work for US Rubber in Fort Wayne. But then it got layed off because US Rubber closed the plant. Since it was near IH's truck manufacturing plant, IH bought it and converted it to make Scouts.

I walked past the shiny tractors in the front of the building such as the gold demo tractors and focused on the stuff with "character."





I digitally zoomed in to the rollers that pop the ears off for my corn picker post.


I'm zooming in trying to figure out how the machine removes the husks.

I took a lot of photos of the little-square bailers because I had already learned that it was hard to find photos of them, let alone the real deal.



The crank that runs the plunger.

The knotter is off to the right.

The knotter. I still haven't figured out how they work.






They do repairs in the far back of the building.


A crimper is another rare implement to find.


I wonder what the blue plow with the red PTO-driven augur does. I didn't notice it while I was in the museum. Discovering it while taking a look at the photos is one of the advantages of taking photos. (The video called this a terracer.)

I've seen this called a haybine. It is a self-propelled mower with the crimper built in. (The video called it a windrower.)




A hay rake.


An old ground-driven manure spreader. Manure spreaders are older than tractors. In the 1800s they had wheels under the front and were pulled by horses. When IH was formed, most of the farm manufactures were making harvesters. One reason why IH was formed was to reduce the redundancy of harvest manufacturing by using some of the plants to build other things. I forget which plant was chosen to build the manure spreaders.









This is the rear of the cotton picker photographed below.



I was trying to get a shot of the spindles that stab the cotton balls.




Now we are getting back to the horse & buggy days.


This binder is folded up for travel (and storage).


Some of the shiny tractors.


This is a closeup of the "before" photo at the front of the tractor below.


It struck me that there was no PTO and just one hydraulic circuit.

Another "before" photo.


A detail on the side.

I try to take a photo of the back as well as the front because that is where a lot of the technology development of tractors shows.

IH made trucks.



A lot of farmers were mad that Case killed Farmall, especially the 2+2, when Tenneco bought the IH farm operation. In fact, Tenneco didn't even buy the huge Farmall plant in Rock Island.

I zoomed in for the model number and date.



I found the stuff out behind the buildings more interesting than the shiny tractors. It looks like they make this 460 earn its keep by mowing the lawn.

A seed drill with one of the flexible pipes missing.




A feedmill with some shields missing so that you can see the big pulley on the PTO shaft and the small one on the hammer-mill shaft so that the hammer mill will spin a lot faster. Lots of belts were used because most of the horsepower of the tractor was going to the hammer mill to grind the feed. That is, the tractor is stationary when they are grinding and mixing the feed.


When they fold the augur straight for unloading, those gears mesh to drive the extension augur.

Another drill. I took a lot of photos because I knew these were hard to find.




A baler with its own engine. It looks like it used a wide flat belt instead of a bunch of V-belts between the engine and the baler.



They used to host tractor pull shows.

The economics of digital photography allows one to take photos early and often.

When I first arrived, there was a "train" of cars being pulled by a tractor. These two screenshots are from a 3 second video I took as the train passed me. I'm not posting the video because 3 seconds is too short, I don't know how to degrade faces in a video, it was out of focus and I tilted the camera. 

This screenshot shows the cars being pulled by the tractor.

I thought it was interesting that all of the kids quickly picked up that there was a camera following them and they all started waving.

But later, when I saw the train parked, I carefully took photos of the logo on each of the cars. These logo photos came in very handy when I researched the 8 tractor manufactures that existed when I was a kid.






They use a Scout for their everyday transportation needs.