ISRR = Indiana Southern Railroad
AWW = Algers, Winslow & Western Railway; now this is a line jointly owned by NS and Old Ben Coal and serves mines #1 and #2. It used to connect Big Four and Southern to the strip mines that are east of Oakland City.
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| Jim Pearson Photography posted Norfolk Southern 167 passes through downtown Oakland City, Indiana as it crosses over the Indiana Southern line at the diamond, on its way east along the NS Southern East District with five locomotives and NS 4452 leading the charge on October 9th, 2021! Tech Info: DJI Mavic Air 2S Drone, RAW, 22mm, f/2.8, 1/2000, ISO 100. Craig Cloud: NS keep any of the Algers, Winslow and Western after absorbing the line? Vance Nelson: Craig Cloud Yes, but the Engine House was used by the equipment Mechanic. New rail was laid and surfaced. Peter Furnée: What can you tell me about this line?? Traffic Volume, AAR, etc.? Jim Pearson Photography: I'd say it sees about 8-12 trains a day on the NS and perhaps 2-3 on the ISRR. As for the scanner freq. It uses the NS road channel. Jeffrey Daniel Kitchings: The X Track!!!! Roger Riblett shared |
The Big Four route was built by the Evansville, Indianapolis & Terre Haute Railroad. It was obviously the first railroad through town because the town's grid was initially determined by that route.
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The 2005 SPV Map shows AW&W going Southeast from Oakland City to Old Ben #1 and going Northeast to Old Ben #2. So I put on my coal-mining-research hat and dug deeper. This topo map shows the AW&W tracks going northeast and southeast from Oakland. It also documents a lot of strip mining in that area.
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| 1969 Vincennes Quadrangle @ 1:250,000 |
When I looked at a satellite image, I found a lot of long skinny lakes at random angles. I learned years ago that those lakes are the land scars or tattoos of strip mining. When I Googled Old Ben Mine, I found entries for mines up to #26. So Pike County must have been the beginning of that company. I have already documented Old Ben Mines #8, #9 and #14 in Franklin County Illinois. But according to Hinton, the name Old Ben was chosen to honor Benjamin Franklin and Franklin County. So maybe these lower numbered mines were started by a predecessor company. (Update: The predecessor of Old Ben #1 and #2 was Enos Coal Mine.)
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| Satellite |
When you look at the extent of the tattoos, you wonder if there is any more coal near the surface in that area. I think the answer is no because when I found the loadout loops of track at the end of each AW&W spur, I saw a conveyor coming out of a slope shaft to a storage pile.
Old Ben Mine #1:
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Old Ben Mine #2:
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So they are now working coal beds that are too deep to strip mine, but are still shallow enough that they can use slope mining instead of shaft mining.
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| IndianaMemory-046 [On the higher-resolution image available at the linked site I could read the name BIG DIVOT.] |
Old Ben #2 had more than one dragline. Big Divot is the largest I spotted. The person who captioned these photos doesn't understand the difference between a dragline and a shovel. When the bucket faces forward, it is a shovel, not a dragline.
(Update: evidently someone decided to restrict access to IndianaMemory. It now wants a login. I'm sure I didn't need a login when I wrote these notes. Bummer!)
More Info on Old Ben #2 and Draglines
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| Rick Kinnaman posted Old Ben 2 Petersburg field. Looking from boom on Big Red BE 1450 1980's south of Petersburg IN on hwy 61 Kevin Geltmaker: Have a good friend that worked there. Those are 120ton Wabco dumps. Rick Kinnaman: Kevin Geltmaker yes diesel electric Kevin Geltmaker: Rick Kinnaman 16V149 Detroit power. PikeLibaryGenealogyDepartment |
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| IndianaMemory, Dugger Coal Museum, cropped IndianaStoryTeller Big Red in the background at Old Ben: Indiana Historical Society |
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| indiana-igws |
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| IndianaStoryTeller "I can remember in high school during the mid 70s when Big Red crossed over Highway 61 in Campbelltown to work on the other side of the highway. They worked for months building a road for her to walk on. My friends and I even skipped school that day to watch it. And we weren’t the only ones!....I remember a few years ago taking the Senior Citizens out to watch the dragline go back across Highway 61 on the Petersburg side of the beltline. I don’t think they shared my enthusiasm but they were always up for an outing. |
Five photos in a row from PikeLibaryGenealogyDepartment.
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If Big Red was the B-E 1450-2, was Gentle Ben the B-E 1370?
Five photos in a row from PikeLibaryGenealogyDepartment with the caption: "Gentle Ben Dragline, Old Ben Coal Co. Pike County, IN Alford Field 10/8/1985"
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Ron Sharp posted three photos with the comment: "Old Ben 2 moving Draglines across Hiway 61 south of Petersburg."
Rick Kinnaman: Alex Taylor these machines were BE 1370's at Old Ben 2. Their names Divot and Gentle Ben. Big Kate is a BE 2570 at Old Ben 1.
Barb Overbeck-Sanders: Rick Kinnaman, I see big Kate running at Lynnville.
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B-E 1370 Flickr when it was still working in Indiana. It was moved to Florida.
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