Frank,
I grew up in the area (in Belleville) the Peabody Short Line was bought by the IC in 1960 or 61. But it only lasted a few years. Before Peabody started their own railroad, the mine was served by the St Louis and Belleville Electric Railroad. I don't know why it was the "electric" railroad as far as I know the track was never electrified or ran under catenary. Their hoppers were black and Peabody acquired them when they started their own operation.
I've alsways got a kick out of how popular those yellow hoppers are in the model railroading community. I don't think they ever ran in interchange service until after the IC bought the railroad and I don't know if they ever ran in their Peabody yellow paint after the IC bought the railroad.
I have a photo of a patched Peabody Short Line RS unit from right after the IC bought it. Looks pretty good with the IC Green Diamond below the cab windows on that yellow and green locomotive. I don't know how long that scheme lasted before the IC painted them black and white.
The River King mine is long gone along with the barge loading facility on the East St Louis river front. Just about all of the mines in that area are gone now. Still a couple working mines down by Benton and one up by Hillsboro. Someone built a short line that runs from the mine in Hillsboro to the power plant at Coffeen, that's went in in the last 6 years. No one uses te soft Illinois and Western Kentucky coal that used to provide so much traffic for the IC, CB&Q, C&EI and a couple short lines any more.
Jeff
My guess would be that the people in Freeburg Il. didn't like Peabody hoppers either...seeing as how the River Mine was owned by Peabody.
I hear that mine area is a Fish/Wildlife game area now!
Take Care!
Frank
Well the coal that fired the TVA plants may have come from Peabody mines, but the Peabody Short Line ran from the River King Mine in Freeburg IL to the barge terminal on the Mississippi River in East St Louis, maybe 30 miles....
Thanks Mike....yeah I've always liked the song.
It's sort of funny, that Modeler's liked the Peabody hopper's......but I'm willin' to bet...the people from Paradise didn't care for them..one bit!
Great song Frank. And the coal was hauled to TVA funded power plants.
Mike.
My You Tube
Seem's appropiate for the thread....little nostalgia by John Prine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEy6EuZp9IY
Bit of eye candy...
Cheers...
Chris from down under...
We're all here because we're not all there...
Thank you. I appreciate the information.
Jim Ford
Thanks for the info. I am not famililiar enough with fonts to recognize the differences and I appreciate the Franklin Gothic reference. Peabody, Sherman, Time Machines. There's a joke brewing here.
Thanks
Aside from the impossibility of it being Arial without the intervention of a time machine, the Cs are wrong anyhow.
It has a lot of similiarity to Franklin Gothic, which dates to the appropriate timeframe and was pretty popular.
Railroads in the classic and transition eras didn't use "fonts" in the same way that we think of them now. Often the lettering was custom-designed by the railroad and the masters were hand-drawn.
Arial itself dates only from 1982, although of course san-serif typefaces existed for many decades before, formally from at least the early 1800s.
You might have to choose the modern font that looks closest and call it "good enough."
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
Hi,
Looking for any info on available HO decals for Peabody Coal Short Line. Also does anyone recognize the font used by Peabody on their AS16, RS2 or RS3. Also looking for any decal or font info on Athearn, Walthers etc. Peabody coal hoppers. I believe they used an arial font but I am not a font guy and am not sure. I have searched extensively for this information but no luck. I have found some old Champ decals on Ebay but they were sold long ago.
Thanks,