Towns and Nature: March 2024

Sunday, March 31, 2024

DeMotte, IN: Moved/NYC Depot

1 of 4 redundant photos posted by Industrial Belt Railway

I went back to DeMotte, Indiana this afternoon and got a few photos at the Historical Society located at 112 Carnation Street SE, Demotte, IN 46310

They moved the old New York Central Depot to the park and added a Caboose on display. I hope you like it. As always, thanks for looking.

Tim

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DeMotte Historical Society Celebrates 20 Years in 2017
The depot was moved in 1998 and opened as a museum in 2001. The caboose was purchased from Terre Haute, IN, in 2002 and opened on Oct 18, 2003.

DeMotte Historical Society added 12 photos with the comment: "Caboose Museum Displays 1.0."

I included the grain elevator on the left. It seems the elevator did not survive in this town.

Apr 1, 1952 @ 28,400; AR1UJ0000010035

Neither topo map marked the depot correctly. Neither web site had the other topo map.

Old USGS topo web site:

1957 Demotte Quad @ 24,000

New USGS topo web site:

1959 Demotte Quad @ 24,000

Flager, CO: Wood Grain Elevators, Larger Elevators and Fertilizer

Wood: (Satellite)

Wood and bolted steel: (Satellite)

This straight truck is like the one I used to drive on my grandfather's farm. I thought it was an honor when they allowed me to take a load of wheat to town. But then I learned how long you have to set in line at the elevator.

Street View, Sep 2023

John Bord posted

The old tin clad still being used

Flagler, CO.

John Bord shared

Dennis DeBruler commented on John's share
An elevator on the east side of town is also interesting. It is four bolted-steel silos with a wood headhouse. https://maps.app.goo.gl/o2DVtrKT8jKfL2D46

Look at all of the liquid fertilizer trailers.

Street View, Sep 2023

The tanks in the foreground probably hold liquid fertilizer. I think the bins in the background are for dry fertilizer rather than a feed mill.

Street View, Sep 2023

Next to the bins is a building to hold a lot of a dry product. Potash?

Street View, Sep 2023

Given all of the chutes coming down from the legs, this is probably a feed mill. And do the bags on pallets in the building hold seed?

Street View, Sep 2023

There was a short cut of hoppers at the grain storage facility and an even shorter cut at the fertilizer facility, so I investigated the ownership of the railroad. Sure enough, this former Rock Island is now owned by a shortline, specifically Kyle Railroad.

Satellite

There is more grain storage east of town, but I guess that is owned by a farmer.

Street View, Sep 2023

Greenwich, KS: Wood Grain Elevator and Buzzi Unicem Cement Distribution

Elevator: (Satellite)

Cement: (Satellite)

Street View, Sep 2023

2007 is evidently the first year that Google dispatched street view technology. (They seem to have done another effort for good coverage in 2023. I have seen quite a few small town views lately that were taken in 2023.) The resolution in the 2007 views is not as good, but the trees were smaller.

Street View, Aug 2007

Bob Summers posted two photos with the comment: "Greenwich is our next elevator community as we continue westerly on the former Missouri Pacific line into the northeast part of metropolitan Wichita Kansas. Has been many decades since this old timer was in service. Does not look like the railcar loading spout was modified in order to fill the top loading covered hopper cars that the railroads introduced for grain in the early 1960’s. Few people, if they did not know it was there, would notice it amongst the overgrown vegetation. No idea on the history of this one. Photographed 2019."

The greenfield cement distribution plant west of town has enough sidings to hold a unit train.

Satellite

I found what may be a trackmobile that they would use to move the hopper cars so that UP just has to deliver and retrieve the trains. UP doesn't have to help unload them.

Satellite

This view confirms that they have a trackmobile. The old ties we see in the above street view of the elevator and in this view indicates that UP is spending some money on track maintenance. A fixation on stockholders, PSR and Operating Ratio tends to kill maintenance activity. This plant did not exist in an Oct 2012 view.

Street View, Jun 2023

They had a red trackmobile in 2019.

Street View, Aug 2019

Saturday, March 30, 2024

St. Paul, MN: Northern Pacific Backshops, Water Tower and Coaling Tower

Transfer Table: (Satellite, 891 photos)

Street View, Jun 2019

Street View, May 2023

10 of the 35 images posted by Cody Wangen with the comment: "Built in 1885 and being the np s major car shop east of the rockies to help service and maintain its 1100 passenger cars it consists of 4 major buildings all still very much intact . The cross shaped building being the wood shop to build and replace the wood sided passenger cars. The building next to it with the large array of Chimneys was the original blacksmith shop were anything and everything could be repaired and manufactured. The large buildings in the middle with the turntable are the car shops with 1902 transfer table. It also includes the water tank snd sanding tower. It is beyond cool that such a huge complex was saved and not turned into a parking lot and is now a hotel you can stay In that were staying in tonight. All these bricks are yellow colored coming from little falls mn the same place the np shops in Brainerd got they're bricks from. If your ever in como park in st paul I'd highly recommend stopping here and checking it out it is really neat to sww it all preserved."