Labor Day Weekend Trip to Illinois
August 30-Sept. 2, 2013

by Dave Ingles

A half century ago, on the 1963 Labor Day weekend, I was in Springfield, Ill., for the wedding of my railfan photography friend Dick Wallin and Lorine Batterton. The friendship has lasted, augmented when I met Carol Coon, my future wife, in 1968, and our marriage in 1971, right after we moved to the Milwaukee area. So when Dick & Lorine's two kids planned a 50th Wedding Anniversary party for Sept. 1, 2013 (actually one day after the anniversary date), attending jumped onto our "must" list. Carol & I drove from Waukesha to Springfield on Friday, Aug. 30, with a few train-photo stops en route, and drove home on Labor Day Monday, also with some train-related "breaks."

We left Waukesha about 10:30 a.m., and our first stop was, of course, Rochelle, Ill. (The Illinois Welcome Center and rest area at the state line has been closed for more than a year, serving as a construction equipment staging area for the few miles of I-90/I-39 north of the Northwest (Jane Addams) Tollway up to the Wisconsin state line.

Our first subject was GP60 3148, the parked Rochelle switcher, at 12:58 p.m. This unit was the Mendota local engine in late April when I was thru this area, en route to and from Springfield for an Illinois Traction Society meeting (see separate website file under 2013).

Shortly an eastbound stack train showed up, at 1:06 behind 7903/7886, photographed at 9th St. as he passed the Railroad Park. That was all the action we could scare up at Rochelle..

Our next stop was Mendota, and it also was quiet. I'd called Amtrak as we left Rochelle to check the status of the eastbound Southwest Chief and California Zephyr, and by getting on our horse, I thought we could get the Chief at Mendota. Alas, he beat his estimated station time by a couple of minutes and as we turned off US 34 onto 1st Avenue, there he went, right in front of us. Fortunately neither the units nor the consist were unusual: 95/180 and 9 cars at 1:51. However, the Galesburg-Mendota local was in town, the same job I followed into Mendota from the west edge of town in late April. This time he had 3 units -- 2001-3136-2240 -- the middle one, GP60 3136, being one of two GP60s I'd seen on this job in April. When the Chief cleared, we saw his lead (eastbound) unit and made a shot. 

We also found the Mendota switcher to have 2 units, the first time I'd seen this: 2005 and 2119. They were parked across from the depot, as usual, still coupled to 2 cars I'd bet they brought back from Zearing and Illinois Railway interchange.

The Galesburg local's units backed up to couple to their train.

As the local's units backed up to their train, I made a few shots around the depot. Note the "relic" baggage cart which is stenciled GM&O -- making me wonder if it's some GM&O fan with a stencil, or an actual GM&O cart moved in from elsewhere. Mendota is a stop for the Chief and the Chicago-Quincy trains, the Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg, but not for the California Zephyr. Both the Zephyr and the Chief stop at Princeton, about 20 miles west. The depot is part of a museum, with equipment displayed outside and a model railroad inside.

We made our last photo of the local at 2:05 and headed out to I-39 for a Subway lunch, inside a gas station/C-store. (There is another Subway in town.) After eating, we got back on I-39 to head south.

Our next stop was Lincoln, Ill., normally not a stop on our itinerary unless a train is expected, but in checking gasbuddy.com at home before departure, I found Lincoln to be having a "gas war." Price per gallon in Lincoln, at virtually all outlets, was $3.45/gallon (.9 assumed), vs. in the $3.60s and $3.70s elsewhere, and $3.49 to $3.53 at home; we'd left on a full tank. We chose a Thornton's in town near the square and the Amtrak stop and adjacent former GM&O depot, inactive now I believe but which has been a restaurant, with cabooses and coaches attached, most of IC heritage.

A quiet day on the railroad turned busy for a brief flurry after we left Lincoln, and between 5:05 and 5:45 p.m. we shot 3 trains at Elkhart, Ill., a 2-mile passing siding about 10 miles south of Lincoln.

First, a northbound local freight which was called "28" on the scanner, pulled into the siding and stopped near the north switch; I photographed him at 5:06. The access road, 2 lanes of the former 4-lane Route 66, is right next to I-55 along here and provided a good photo platform with minimal auto traffic interference. His power: SD40-2s 1766 and 1767, and SD70M 4283, with 17 cars. I don't keep up with rosters like I used to, but the SD's in the 1700s was new to me -- seems similar to BNSF's treatment.

The next maneuvers proved that "higher speed" passenger service on this Chicago-St.  Louis route is still sort of a lie. Instead of holding the freight at Ridgely (Yard, with passing track) in Springfield, the dispatcher advanced him to Elkhart, forcing a three-way meet with two on-time passenger trains, #21 the southbound Texas Eagle and #304, the northbound Lincoln Service train that comes from Kansas City (as a Missouri River Runner) and used to be Amtrak's Ann Rutledge. Train #304 pulled into the south end of Elkhart siding at 5:28, engine 69 leading 6 Amfleet cars and engine 67. I apologize for the weeds hiding all the trucks, can't help it. 

The Eagle, having loped along waiting for #304 to get in the clear, approached as it revved up to head on south, passing us at 5:29 with engine 189 and 8 Superliners.

As #304 backed out onto the main line to run past the stopped local freight #28, we went up to the freight units to photo the "pass." The conductor performed some "on the spot" maintenance by checking something. I apologize for the bug-splat on the windshield as I made this "grab shot."

Lincoln Service #304 passed the freight at 5:37. The apperatus visible beyond the tracks is a "house" where a conveyor belt from the nearby Viper Coal Mine, to the east, makes a turn to the south along the railroad toward Williamsville, to, I assume, a transload facility.

The freight began moving north at 5:32.

Note that Viper Mine Road's grade crossing is like them all on this line, which will be seeing higher-speed trains, with 4-quadrant gates and barriers between the road's lanes.

Two of the train's 17 cars were flats containing concrete ties for installation on this line.

Satisfied with, finally, some railroad action, we headed on to Springfield, secured our lodging, at the Microtel, had dinner at the nearby Dirksen Parkway Steak n Shake, and relaxed afterward. The SnS's in Springfield, Ill., and Jacksonville, 30 miles west, are franchisee-operated and have slightly different menus that normal (Springfield, Mo.'s SnS's are also franchisee-operated, by another firm). We had the local delicacy, a Horseshoe. It's called a sandwich, but has open-faced toast covered by 2 steakburger patties, all smothered in LOTS of french fries and LOTS of a special cheese sauce. You have to be young, or on Lipitor, to order it :-). They offer a smaller version (1 steakburger pattie) called a Ponyshoe. Many restaurants in the area feature these, but other places offer, along with burger patties, ham, bacon, and other choices as "bases."

Saturday we had free, but did what we'd talked about and drove 30 miles west of Springfield  to Jacksonville, where I attended MacMurray College 1962-1965. Like Friday, this day was in the upper 90s so we minimized our out-of-vehicle activities. We took "Old US 36" west, since it follows NS's former Wabash Decatur-Kansas City main line. Naturally, things were pretty quiet. In fact, we had extraordinarily bad luck with NS trains all weekend, as opposed to very good luck on the various BNSF lines. As we were leaving Springfield, an eastbound NS train was going under us on the Stanford Ave. overpass just south of the old Iles junction site (NS/Wabash crossing UP/GM&O), replaced by the current joint alignment a couple of decades ago. Going on west, right after I stopped in New Berlin to photograph the little metal building that replaced the old wooden Wabash depot, we spotted headlights coming west, which turned out to be a local freight out of Decatur ... just two GP's, a 38 and a 59, running "light"! As we drove around Jacksonville after lunch at the local Steak n Shake, we spotted at a distance up the street an eastbound vehicle tri-level train going through. Here are NS 5177/7141 in New Berlin at 12:32 p.m.

Jacksonville is home to the Ferris Wheels of the last half century plus, made at the Eli Bridge Co. plant north of the central business district. At the main highway corner south of downtown and east of today's current commercial strip on Morton Ave., on the southwest corner at Main St., is this "symbolic welcome" display. "In my day here (at college)" this was the intersection of U.S. 36 and U.S. 67. Tha latter no longer goes through the city, and I-72 which bypasses the city to the south also carries 36.

Just west of the central square 3 blocks on west State St. is the corner of Church St., which once sported 4 churches on the corners. A mural just to the south commemorates this. Only the two on the far left and right survive here; the two older red-brick structures north of State St. are long gone. 

East of the Church St. corner but west of the square on State St. is the Morgan County Courthouse. In recent times I began photographing courthouses in  Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, and selected other states (Texas, however, has books with photos of ALL the courthouses for its 254 counties!), generally restricting to "picturesque ones." I have visited every county in 11 states, including all "Great Lakes states" except Minnesota (still 3 or 4 to go up there), but some counties outside the Midwest were only by train, plus years back I did not take courthouse photos. 

I did not recall this as the site, or the building, of the Illinois Theater in Jacksonville 50 years ago, but it was certainly worth a photo; it's at the northeast corner of the central square (which has no buildings on the middle commons ground).

This is Kendall House, the dorm on Hardin Avenue at the south end of the MacMurray campus, where I lived during 1962-1964. It was 5 1/2 blocks south of JA Tower, where the Wabash/N&W, GM&O, and CB&Q all crossed, and where of course I spent considerable time :-)

The old Chicago  & Alton (later GM&O) brick depot on E. State St. now houses Lonzaretti's Italian restaurant, which is very good (we'd eaten there twice several years back, driving over from Springfield during visits). The track is the BNSF's Beardstown-Paducah line; the GM&O track was east of (beyond) the depot; this photo looks northeast. The GM&O and CB&Q crossed a block south (to our right here), and the Wabash/N&W crossed both 2 blocks to the north.

After photographing the depot, we were in the process of doing a "perimeter look" of the old tower area when, as we crossed the BNSF north of the NS on E. Lafayette Ave., Carol noticed the southbound BN home signal for the NS crossing was green, so we hi-tailed it back to the State St, crossing, and soon came a short southbound BNSF general freight (this is mainly a coal route, always has been), with engines 4974/5298 and about 25 cars. The going-away view shows a track diverging to the right where the foliage shows up; this is the Kansas City Southern, which operates the old GM&O "Jack Line" this far north from Manchester (a junction point north of Roodhouse on the Springfield-Kansas City line). The KCS track shows a bit of shine, indicating some interchange with BNSF.

What was a half century ago Mobil Chemical on the city's southeast side now is Reynolds Consumer Products, and as you can see from the cars each side of the "KCS main," it still does a good rail business. Moreover, although I didn't photograph it, there is a new grain-loading facility a mile south of here, just north of I-72, and KCS has rebuilt the branch with good heavy welded rail!

We returned to Springfield in mid afternoon Saturday and spent the evening at the Wallins, with their son and his wife, their daughter and her son and boyfriend, and another longtime-friend couple from Lansing, Mich. The party on Sunday was not until afternoon, so Carol and I moseyed around Springfield in the morning, which had high fog and slightly cooler temperatures than the mid-90s of Friday and Saturday. Since no one was around, I stepped inside the fence at NS's Shops Yard to make a shot of the idle local switch engine, 5316.

Next was to the Amtrak depot, the old Alton/GM&O building, west of downtown, where, since the sun was not out, I photographed the arrival of the Texas Eagle, train #22, pretty close to on-time as he arrived at 10:00 a.m. sharp, with engine 205 and 8 cars. The potted plants and benches have been fairly recent additions to the station platform area. Just to the left of the engine cab, across the street, the white-painted establishment with the Bud Light sign, still in business as a bar, was a frequent sandwich and beer stop back in my GM&O train-riding times.

While #22 made his station stop, we beat it up to I&M Jct., the former Ridgely Tower site, figuring the Eagle would meet Lincoln Service #301 at Ridgely Yard. An unexpected bonus was that UP local #28 again, this time with two units, 1521/1962, the trailing unit a patched Cotton Belt GP60, was on hand, making a set-out at Ridgely at 10:06.

The Eagle soon showed up, its first car a baggage car, kind of unusual, and passed at 10:10. As he passed, the local freight's units moved a bit south, then backed up into the yard again.

The Amtrak trains met toward the north end of the Ridgely siding, and shortly #301 showed up, passing at 10:15 with unit 67 leading 5 Amfleet cars and trailing unit 69, the same as on #304 Friday afternoon but with 1 less car.

The neighborhood east of the former Ridgely interlocking is noted for having an alley named "Cellini Blvd.," honoring the family of Illinois politician Bill Cellini, recently convicted of some typical illinois pol transgression. Bill grew up in a house between that named alley and one of the parallel streets. (He's a Republican power-behind-the-throne who is among Republicans in bed with the Democrats who "lead" Illinois.)

The timing of this caper was a mistake, as it cost me another NS train, for as we approached the track on 19th St., near the old C&IM shop, the gates went down and a westbound passed behind NS 2755/UP 5029/NS 8956, which I snapped thru the windshield in frustration. Pathetic, eh? At least no Heritage units were involved.

On the way back to the motel, we stopped on Eastdale Ave. along the west side of the city-owned Bergen Park golf course to photograph an artifact the late Jim Springer of Springfield had shown Dick Wallin and me a few years previous -- a concrete mile marker next to the old B&O (CI&W) line from Springfield to Indianapolis! On the east side, it's lettered "S 2" for 2 miles from the Springfield depot. On this west side we see, it's a C 31X -- I didn't get out and walk over to look, had done that the first time) for the 310-plus miles from Cincinnati.

As we headed thru Springfield's southeast side back streets, bound for our motel to change for the 50th anniversary party, what should we spy but a train on the last line thru the city I'd expect to see a train: CN's former IC St. Louis line, now stubbed south of Springfield at a coal mine near Farmersville. The train was an I&M train of coal loads from the Powder River Basin, bound for the Pawnee Transload at the old mine-mouth power plant west of Kincaid; C&IM called the site Ellis Yard. I&M has trackage rights on CN from Avenue Interlocking on Springfield's east side down to Cimic (get it -- the old RR initials), where the former C&IM diverges east for Pawnee and Taylorville. BNSF power, running thru, was in charge, and with a 10-mph restriction for the train, we had just enough time to go to the only east-side access on the track in this part of the city, Truman Road, for pictures; the street dead-ends east of the tracks by some business firms, and I had never shot here. This spot is just north of "Brickyard," where the ICG-built cutoff over west to the old GM&O main line was built to connect ICG's main lines in the city, allowing abandonment of much of the IC further south. These photos were made at 11 a.m., with units 6056/5764 up front and DPU 9330 on the rear. In the going-away views, the signal you see is for Brickyard, with the red-over-yellow "diverging" display meaning CN on straight south, not onto the connection westward (rebuilt on an old Illinois Terminal right of way).

For those of the railroad persuastion, photos at the party are minimized :-)

A sign guided guests from East Lake Drive to the parking lot above the building that hosted the party (in the center, right above the sign), overlooking Lake Springfield.

Lorine and Dick Wallin, the celebrants.

Noted railfan Dr. Louis A. Marre (center) drove over from Dayton. He and I (left), plus Lorine's maid of honor and one bridesmaid (and of course the groom, "RRW," at right) were the only people at the party who had attended the wedding. (Hey, most of us are 70 or older!). I can't remember who took this photo for us.

The hall was rented until 4:30, but the party pretty much broke up after 3:30; almost 50 people were in attendance, counting the Wallin clan. Carol & I were invited to join the family — plus long-time friends Dwight & Carol Moore, who lived next door to Wallins in suburban Southern View when the Wallins' 2 kids were little, then moved to Lansing, Mich., around 1970 — for a pizza supper at Monical's (an eastern Illinois-based chain with excellent food!) at 6:45. So with time in between, and a sunny and not overly hot afternoon, we drove around some more. The Great Western Depot museum, along the NS main line on downtown's eastern limit, was where Abe left from to assume the Presidency. A building just east of the tracks has a mural of the departure partially done.

Here's the gang at Monical's. Bree, our waitress, took the group photo.. From left foreground to right foreground: Jeff Wallin and his wife Valerie, who live near Cobden in deep southern Illinois; Makeo Wallin, son of daughter Kymm Ann Wallin (they live in Santa Cruz, Calif.); Dick, Lorine, Carol Ingles, me, Dwight and Carol Moore; Kymm Ann, and her boyfriend Shannon (originally of Tilton, Ill., an old Wabash town near Danville).

Next morning, Labor Day itself dawned clear with comfortable temps in the 70s. Carol & I had no deadline to leave, so we aimed first at the morning Amtrak passenger trio, concentrating on the 3rd Street corridor south of the depot, where the now single track still splits homes and brick paving on each side. It'll probably be a few years before these scenes are history, but plans are afoot to relocate the passenger route (UP-owned) thru the city on a relocated track on the NS right of way down the 11th Street corridor. The new Amtrak station will probably be near the Great Western Museum, but in the city's north end, a large number of homes and businesses will be in the way, so who knows how fast it all will progress. 

First on the scene was Lincoln Service #302, with engine 63 leading 6 cars (5 Horizon, 1 Amfleet) and engine 64 on the rear, photographed at Allen Street at 8:36 a.m.

While he made his station stop, I drove north on 4th Street, which as one-way has timed traffic lights, for a second run-by between North Grand and Converse Streets, at 8:46. The going-away photo shows the intersection of Converse and 8th Streets, one block west of the apartment where I lived during 1968-1971.

For #22, the northbound Texas Eagle, we set up along 3rd north of Allen at Canedy St., and he came by at 10:08. Note the license plate on our van, ALTN RTE, which to the state means "alternate route" since DOT would not understand "Alton Route," by which we are parked!

As usual, #22 met Lincoln Service #301 up at Ridgely Yard, so we set up south of Carpenter St. where we could get the state capitol in the going-away view. The consist was the same as on #301 the day before, but with 1 more Amfleet car, engine 67 leading  and 69 trailing.

While #301 made its station stop, we drove to Capitol Avenue just east of the underpass to frame the capitol building in the classic shot. On a holiday morning, there was no traffic to impede us, but streets west of the track are not one-way and a couple of red lights made this a close call. Note the "Illinois High Speed Rail" emblem on coach 82536, one of which now is dedicated equipment for the short stretch of 110-mph running up north around Dwight, Ill. As we left Springfield, a westbound NS vehicle train was passing I-55 overhead as we went under, just another "miss" on NS this weekend.

Ten years ago, we traveled to Springfield for a now-forgotten reason over Labor Day weekend while Harley-Davidson was staging a huge to-do in Milwaukee to mark its 100th anniversary, with thousands of Harley riders descending on the city. On I-39, we passed hundreds of bikers in each direction, and the same thing happened this weekend in 2013 for Harleyfest marking 110 years, only this time we counted bikes we passed while on the Interstates (43, 90, 39, and 55). Going south we met 236 bikes, and going north we met over 350! Only those on the Interstates when we were, were tallied. Moreover, there were motorcycle races on Labor Day weekend at the State Fairgounds in Springfield, with hundreds of bikes in the city, too. We didn't learn of this until it was too late to begin a count. Going north on I-39 on Labor Day, I tried a few thru-the-windshield snaps of southbound Milwaukee returnees when we were free of immediate traffic in our lanes and the bikers were in sunlight, which was in-and-out. This trio is near El Paso, Ill. 

Our first leg stretch out of Springfield was over in Toluca, Ill., 5 miles west of I-39, around 12:30. The town was having a Labor Day parade, and crowds were gathering, so once we checked the eastward signals west of town for the controlled crossovers on BNSF's Transcon, and found Track 2 lined east, we parked at the town's east grade crossing (there are 2) and just waited. A 123-car vehicle train behind one unit, 6712, with DPU's 5439/6866 on the rear, came by at 12:45 as expected.

What we didn't expect, having not noticed the signal, was that Track 1 was also lined east, and just as the 6712 East's DPUs cleared, here came a stack and TOFC train on Track 1,  passing us at 12:48 behind units 6074/5348/7166/7165. As you can see, the sun wasn't always favoring us, but one always shoots anyway :-)

We were delighted that for the holiday weekend, Illinois had opened all Interstate lanes, moving orange barrels out of the way!

Two more groups of bikers, between the Toluca exit and Mendota, our next stop

Our next "rest stop" was Mendota, and we had time to get a McDonald's lunch to go and eat it by the tracks at 1st Avenue in advance of the arrival of Amtrak #4, the Southwest Chief. (To our amazement, #6, the California Zephyr, was long gone, running -- believe it or not -- on-time with an ahead-of-schedule Chicago arrival!) The Chief showed up at 2:20, an hour late, with engines 182 (formerly named "Tommy Thompson" for the Amtrak champion Wisconsin governor who was on Amtrak's board) and 23 with 9 cars.

We left Mendota after the Chief passed, as nothing else was expected, and got off as customary at Steward to check the westward BNSF signal approaching Rochelle. It was red, but as we motored on toward Rochelle, we spotted an eastbound intermodal and so made a U-turn to shoot it at the Steward north crossing. Units 5304 and NS 9282 toted 71 wells and flats past us at 2:55 p.m.

Our next photo subject was a parked BNSF rail train in the yard in eastern Rochelle, units 7140/7200, at 3:06 p.m.

The sun played havoc with us on our next train, the second of four eastbounds during a time of day when BNSF westbounds are the norm. This was a 69-car trilevel vehicle train behind 4483 at 3:11 p.m.

We caught the next one downtown, just west of the old depot site, at 3:23, engines 4108/1085/5408.

UP interrupted the BNSF parade with this westbound 67-well stack train at 3:36, engines 8522/5261/5311/7438. We shot it here because it is a better angle and we were camped out at the BNSF Lincoln Hwy crossing, still expecting a westbound BNSF which never came.

Yet another eastbound caught us by surprise, and out of position to work both cameras for an approaching shot at the crossing, so I took a slide and then a couple of going-away digitals, engines 4996/5034 with 107 wells or trailers, at 3:47.

Another westbound UP wrapped things up, this stacker across from the Rochelle depot behind 5897/4769/7661/7668, at 3:58 p.m. Finally giving  up on any BNSF westbounds and with nothing else imminent on either line, we hit I-39 and headed for home to conclude a busy and satisfying weekend.

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