Mendota Sub of BNSF - 3
The Bridges of Bureau, Henry and Knox Counties
April 28-29, 2010
Photos by J. David Ingles
| After covering BNSF’s Mendota Sub between Arlington and Plano on
March 31-April 1 with Rick Moser and Mike Schafer, and then
Montgomery to Mendota with Carol on April 17, it was time to do the
west end, on Wed.-Thurs., April 28-29. BNSF is installing Positive
Train Control signaling on the Sub this year, which will spell the
end for the signature signal bridges from CB&Q days.
There are about four dozen signal bridges with searchlight signals still standing between the Aurora junction of the C&I line and the Galesburg junction with the Peavine. Most, are identical intermediate signals placed generally a mile apart. And now, from an off-train perspective, I have seen virtually all of them, at least at a distance (many are about halfway between back-road grade crossings). Over the years, there have been some replacements, mostly on the east end. The four dozen count includes each bridge – that is, two for the normal interlockings such as Montgomery, Earlville, Mendota’s “electrics,” and Galva. Most span two tracks; a few span what are, or were, more than two tracks; one is a “gantry” on the north side, at Mendota’s 1st Avenue crossover at the old roundhouse site on the town’s east side. On April 28-29 we found traffic to be a bit light, but the four “guaranteed” long-distance Amtraks (Cal Zephyr and SW Chief) helped push the train count to about a dozen each day. Several westbounds, both coal and merchandise, were staged or parked or re-crewed approaching Galesburg. We were “on site” on the Mendota Sub from Mendota westward from 1:00 p.m. until around 7 on Wed., and on Thurs. we left Galesburg about 8:30 and Mendota about 5:30 p.m., for home. |
| Leaving home at 9:30, we arrive at Mendota about noon, grab a McDonald's lunch, and head west. The Mendota Sub is quiet. We set up for Amtrak #4 at Princeton, on a back-street bridge east (visible here behind the train) of an intermediate signal bridge, but a striping crew has the street tied up, and when #4 shows up, we have to retreat to the U.S. 34 bridge for this photo, missing the signal bridge (we'll get it tomorrow) and also a shot of the rear end, with PV Cyrus K. Holliday, since the road bridge is too wide the train going too fast. Eng. 157/199, 9 cars, 1326 hours. |
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| With insufficient time to make it to the Wyanet area before Amtrak #6, we go back east one bridge. This telephoto view shows the I-80 and US 34 bridges in the distance. This intermediate bridge would make a good late-afternoon shot eastbound from an east-west back road to the north ... but only while the cornfields are still bare. Amtrak #6, eng. 131/46, 8 cars, MP 101, 1339 hours. |
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| There is one intermediate bridge I missed in the aerial photos turns out, along I-80 west of Princeton, good perhaps for a distant westbound shot, but we wind up here, on Road 1600E north off US 6-34, at the next one toward Wyanet, at MP 109, which is a better eastbound view, for a westbound 111-car empty at 14:05 hours, Eng. 9956/9839. Tomorrow we will get Amtrak #4 here. |
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| We are aware of another westbound, but not this eastbound, as i perch on the new-ish (10 years old?) county road bridge on the west end of Wyanet, and luck out with a meet. In this first view, if the Amtrak Chicago-Quad Cities service becomes reality, the connection from the Mendota Sub off to the right and down to the Iowa Interstate (old Rock Island), will take off about where the curve is visible. Eastbound loads, 128 cars, eng. 6188/8801, 14:25 hours. |
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| Even by driving at normal highway speeds from Wyanet thru Sheffield on US 34, we come alongside the grain train east of Neponset where 34 joins the railroad again, and get this shot; the slide shows the next intermediate bridge with the engines, no time to set up better, 14:46 hours, 20 minutes after Wyanet. Tomorrow we will discover a nice curve in between, west of Buda. |
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Note the high school team mascot name for Neponset High School; the old sign was more rustic looking and was a horizontal plank by itself. ETTS. |
| We don't get a train here, but we are exactly 100 miles by rail west of Rick Moser's house, along US 34. Time is 15:03 hours. Note the undulations on US 34 with all the No Passing zones! |
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| The next action is west of Kewanee, a slow town to get through. We hear of an empty table train coming, turns out to be empty stack well cars, at the West Kewanee interlocking somewhat inaccessible. Eng. 740/4870, 85 cars, 15:20 hours. These are strong telephoto views. |
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| A Chick-Gal (CHIGAL) merchandiser is parked along Trolly Road east of Galva, waiting for a new crew (no one aboard, all engines except the CSX shut down, and it might be on "automatic") at E 2150th St., a favorite place to stage as no roads are blocked. Trolly follows the tracks on the south side, and may have been an old interurban route, not sure. A new ethanol plant has forced closure of Trolly Road as you leave Galva eastward, so watch your maps if you're out this way. From here, we headed north a mile, west a mile, and south 1.5 miles into Galva. We ignored one signal bridge east of this parked train, on a slight curve, nothing different. 15:40 hours. eng. 4747/2021/2965/3036/CSX 7825/5105, 103 cars. |
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| Unless you shoot an eastbound in town at the westward home signal, the Galva interlocking is easier accessed between home control point signals. This is Amtrak #5 at 16:14, crossing from 2 to 1 (ran around the CHCGAL), eng. 151/197/122, 8 cars. |
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| West of Galva south of US 34 on Road East 1850th St. is the flimsiet "rainbow" farm-road bridge I've seen in ages, posted for 3 tons, but safe to drive over with a complete wooden deck. There are only a couple like this on the Mendota Sub; another is just east of Buda, ignored this trip but a photo subject in t he past. This is the CHCGAL again, 17:17 hours. You can see we had an hour in between trains. |
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| No time to move before Amtrak #3, so we waited. Carol shot this digital as with passenger-train speed, no time to work two cameras. Eng. 89/16, 8 cars, 17:35 hours. |
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| Going into Galesburg, we had just enough time to nab CHCGAL again at the Peavine Line junction east of the Amtrak depot, 18:14 hours. |
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| I forget the model of this w/o looking it up, but it's unusual, with the "SD45 style" flared radiators on a B-B unit. |
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| After securing a motel room, we go back out US 34 to get Amtrak #382, and find yet another apparent CHCGAL, a surprise to us, creeping along toward Galesburg at 5 mph, waiting for the 4747 to get into the yard and/or Amtrak #382 to pass. Eng. 5821/8936, 76 cars, 18:58 hours, from "new" 34; old 34 parallels the tracks on the east side east to Wataga. |
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| We select this intermediate bridge at MP 153 west of Oneida for our last shot of the day, of Amtrak #382, eng. 31, 4 cars, NPCU 90224 on the rear, 19:13 hours, a few minutes late. Dinner will be, of course, at Steak n Shake. |
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| To begin Thurs., April 29's return to Mendota and home, we first explore Yost, aka East Galesburg, on the former ATSF, and find a gantry signal intact and a headlight, a UP vehicle train on trackage rights, directly backlit of course: Eng. UP 7815/5052, DPU 8349, 8:38 a.m. |
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| A "turkey buzzard" sits on the old Santa Fe |
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| BN Lives! Fremont St. underpass, main line (Mendota Sub), Galesburg, 9:15 a.m. |
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| Parked ethanol train, maybe empty (northbound, but 2 units on each end, these 5108/4933), on the Peavine at Fremont St., 925 a.m. Could be loads bound for Galva, though; train would switch ends in town here. |
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| Mendota Sub, crewless coal empties staged at MP 139, east of County Hwy 9 grade crossing, the first one east of Galesburg. Eng. 659/7382, 120 cars, 9:35 a.m. |
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| All sorts of road work, with single lane and flaggers, on US 34 north of Wataga, none of which was there the night before, keeps us from attaining the signal bridge just west of Altona, so here is Amtrak #381, eng. 203/ 4 cars, NPCU 90224, MP 148, 9:59 a.m. You take what you can get. Intermediate signal bridge is just to rear of train behind trees, shootable from the gravel road on east side of tracks. I'm told Amtrak is busing Macomb-Quincy for BNSF trackwork, hence the NPCU (cab car) on every train for turning back at Macomb. (It was overcast at 7 a.m., so I blew off going into town for Amtrak #380 to start the day at 7:30) |
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| After #381, the line is quiet, so we detour north to Cambridge, Ill., a county seat in Illinois I've never before been to, and we found the RI depot there preserved, on-site, in a heritage village (plus the picturesque Henry County courthouse. We skip Galva on the Mendota Sub, and miss a w.b. train staged at Trolly Road east of town again, from scanner talk. We rejoin the tracks at Kewanee, know an eastbound is coming, and aim for a shot along the pole line, which is intact through town but not to the east or west. Coal loads, eng. 8984/5785, 130 cars, 12:12 p.m. Vantage point is right next to US 34, east end of town. |
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| Meantime, a westbound CHIGAL is approaching, and we go to the curve east of Neponset, which has an intermediate bridge just east, but he doesn't come and doesn't come, and I want the pole line shot, so we go back 8 miles into Kewanee and get it. Meantime, of course, the "Chick-Gal" passes Neponset and stops east of East Kewanee to await recrewing with the shuttle van from Galesburg. So we settle for this going-away sequence of the 8984 East at the E. Neponset bridge. 12:23 hours. |
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| Obviously, a better westbound shot from the grade crossing. Next time! |
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| No DPU, either, on this one. |
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| Here's the CHCGAL awaiting re-crew: Eng. 8225/8223/2351/5107, MP 129, 69 cars, 12:42 p.m. |
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| And the cropped-in sought-after East Kewanee interlocking view, 12:51 p.m., from the shoulder of US 34 |
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| With the overhead bridge at Buda, where I have shot several times, now ruined for photos (fence), and an eastward train shot this time of day to be backlit, we check out the intermediate bridge east of Buda, at the end of a public road dead-end, Road 1150E, at the tracks at MP 114. I take a close-up slide; it's good for westbounds only, and with a 50mm lens, no telephoto, so we go east around the curve, on Road 1200 E, and find a nice open sweeping curve for Amtrak #6, eng. 176/172/156, 9 cars, MP 113.6. The wind is blowing so hard I just stay in the car to shoot -- couldn't have stood steady with telephoto lenses! This first frame is cropped. |
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| The 50mm slide view will be even nicer! |
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| Back to Signal 109 on road 1600E east of Wyanet for Amtrak #4, eng. 120/135, 9 cars, 2:25 p.m. |
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| This is the bridge BNSF dumped a coal train off of last winter, just east of Wyanet. There is a gravel road along the creek beneath the bridge. |
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| Pure backlighting as an eastbound coal load surprises us in Wyanet, at US 34 crossing, 9923/8985, 135 cars, 2:38 p.m. (yeah, I know i've been doing 24 hour clock but i'm tired of that :-). Crappy looking nose, anyway. |
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| Nicely pointed DPU 9847 is better. |
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| The new (2006) covered bridge west of Princeton on Road 1600 N, just west of N Epperson Road. It was right on our way. We didn't go up to the old "Red Covered Bridge" just north of Princeton off Hwy. 40, been there many times; it's the last one in the state not moved that you can drive thru. |
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| The Mendota Sub is quiet, plenty of time for a Culver's pit stop in Princeton, and waiting at the intermediate bridge east of the depot. Amtrak #5, Eng. 131/46, 10 cars, 3:54 p.m. See the nice morning view from that back street bridge in the distance? |
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| A token sunny-side view of the Zearing signal bridge, from the road. There is no westward bridge, just lineside pole signals. |
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| Last action of the day at Arlington, old elevator (plus water tower), no signal bridges. Westward coal empties, 5802/9395, 113 cars, 4:34 p.m., Track 2 |
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| Amtrak #3, 157/199, 8 cars, 5:02 p.m., Track 1. |
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| Token shot of local engine, Mendota, 5:20 p.m. Nothing else coming. |
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| Into Rochelle to try to finish slide film roll in camera, after cruising for 10 to 15 minutes, finally UP offers this overtake of a merchanside train by a vehicle train, Mulford Road, east of town, 6:18 p.m. Slow train has 4825/3848/4082/1995/6812/6722/5886. Fourth is CNW Heritage, 6th is patched CNW paint, only first 2 or 3 are on-line. 115 cars. The vehicle train has 4885/5185. |
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| Turns out the CNW Heritage was Omaha-bound to power a business train thru CNW territory, which we get on May 5 near Milwaukee. (Editor's note: the "95" of the C&NW unit shows through the cab window of the UP unit in front of it.) |
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| The V-train is long gone, but the merchandiser had to dog it to follow him after the V crossed over to Track 2 at Dement (east side Rochelle), so we get to 1st Avenue in Rochelle in time, 6:40 p.m. |
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| Only the first two units on-line. |
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| Now we know where Amtrak's old material-handling express boxcars go! |
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| The first of three eastbounds held back by the V-train overtaking the merchandiser goes thru town, but the lighting only makes sense for a rear-end DPU shot, a sort of "Red caboose" to end the day. From our Culver's dining table, we see a stacker and a merchandise train follow this one east. Head end of this was 6545/SP paint UP 6314, and this DPU is 6295. 122 cars, 6:52 p.m. End of great two days! |
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