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| Andy Zukowski posted Power House for the Aurora, Elgin and Chicago Railroad in Batavia, Illinois 1905 Dennis DeBruler: It was the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin (CA&E), https://www.greatthirdrail.org/, not the AE&C. Dana Larson-Smethurst: Cool! Where was this located? |
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| Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post Inside of the power house |
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| Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post |
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| Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post |
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| Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post |
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| Jimmy Fiedler commented on Andy's post |
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| Dennis DeBruler answered Dana Larson-Smethurst's question It appears the land now has a miniature golf course and a swimming pool on it. https://maps.app.goo.gl/8PtyZ6zFy9HXKMyp9 [1939 Aerial Photo] |
THE POWERHOUSE TODAY
ReplyDeleteThe basic layout
Funway Park, my landmark, opened in 1967, after the powerhouse building was torn down. It looks like the building was about where the miniature golf course and bumper-boat pool are. Larger, though.
Immediately north is Prairie Materials Yard #135 with a concrete company in front of it. Immediately south is a contractor service building with trucks behind it. The powerhouse tracks would have been through the whole area.
The Main ROW came south from Batavia, along the west side of the powerhouse. In the first years there were multiple tracks and a high-level platform/station but it was cut back to a low-level flag-stop shack in the 1920s.
Then the mainline curved southeast towards Eola/Batavia Junction on the Aurora Branch. A connection with the Burlington (BNSF and still active now) continued straight south. The coal for the powerplant went in on the connection.
Southwest of the powerplant was Glenwood Park, a huge draw in it's day. During the depression it was a WPA camp. It's a Forest Preserve now.
The Batavia South dam, with a walkway on it, ran west across the Fox River right behind the building. The AE&C used it and probably built it. The plant used a lot of water, there are pictures of wooden tunnels. The dam was removed between 2005 and 2007.
I don't really get elevation from maps and satellite pics. The ground slopes down pretty steeply between Rt. 25 and the river, the ROW may be twenty feet above the river and the powerhouse/yard looks like it was carved out of the hill. Although the footprint of the yard is completely covered it looks like the grade is about the same.
The trails
ReplyDeleteMost of the CA&E is the Illinois Prairie Path (bike/multi-use) but that ends and turns into the Fox River Trail at the powerhouse.
The main ROW coming south from Batavia is basically intact, although it looks like Prairie Materials is sort of encroaching. There is a public-looking parking lot west of Funway, you sneak in along the north wall. The lot is along the ROW, the trail could have gone through it. Instead the trail goes west around the go-kart track along a cliff-edge. That's where you can climb/fall down to the river. There is some broken concrete down there, dam and some portal stuff.
Just south of the parking lot the Prairie Path starts and curves southeast, under Rt. 25 (new concrete beam) and the Burlington (old steel with rotten concrete abutments). It keeps going southeast until it hits the tollway and reality. It sneaks east from there, Eola Junction is no more. As a kid I was there after abandonment but before scraping. Sigh.
The Fox River Trail continues straight down the Burlington connection and over a tiny bridge on rotten old concrete abutments. Some of this rubble is hard to recognize as concrete. The trail goes into the woods on a different route there but the ghost continuing south is pretty clear. Going into the Forest Preserve you zig-zag on it, then go down and cross the trail on its way to North Aurora.
Some sources
ReplyDeleteStreet Cars & Interurbans vol. 3 ISBN 1-883461-03-0) by Peffers has the most, with a couple of technical drawings.
The Story of the Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad (Vol.1) by Larry Plachno ISBN 0-933449-02-X (v. 1) and The Great Third Rail by CERA (Bulletin 105) no ISBN? have maps
The Batavia Historian page 1-3 is pretty good: https://bataviahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Historian-Vol-56.pdf
United States Geological Survey (USGS): https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#15/41.8366/-88.3087
Illinois Historical Aerial Photos (IHAP) has a 1939 shot that shows the WPA camp: https://prairie-research.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a251e0a92bd84f978e46a0b2f3b5a50f
https://clearinghouse.isgs.illinois.edu/webdocs/ilhap/county/data/kane/flight12/0bwu05048.tif
IHAP also has a 1961 shot (I didn't know they existed) that looks about the same, minus the WPA camp: https://prairie-research.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a251e0a92bd84f978e46a0b2f3b5a50f
https://chf.isgs.illinois.edu/1961/000977/000977_0218.tif
Google and Google Maps.
Nothing Sammy posts comes from Wikpedia.