Well, it (your post) was very informative. When I look at a railroad, I usually try to "see it" in the context or what work it is doing. And just based upon the dearth of sightings I've made when near that line, it's current purpose was always somewhat of a head scratcher.
With the info you provided, things make more sense.
Be careful with that "multi-user name" stuff though. The tin foil hat guys here will have you on 'the grassy knoll' in no time if you give them half a chance.
Convicted One Welcome to the forums Mr Jordan. Your first post was a duesy!! Very informative
Welcome to the forums Mr Jordan. Your first post was a duesy!! Very informative
I've been a member of this forum for a long time, but somehow my old username, bn13814, got separated from my login/password. I've decided to use a subsequent BNSF Peoria Local symbol, LCH107, used from 2011 to 2015. I saw this topic a few weeks back but couldn't reply. Eventually, I created a new username, and was able to reply.
LCHI107TP&W serves a number of elevators on its East End (East Peoria to Logansport). Those at Cruger, Gridley (2), Meadows, Greenfield (new rail loop), Weston, Fairbury, Piper City, LaHogue, Crescent City and Sheldon (on KB&S line), Illinois and at Goodland, Indiana are served at present. The elevator at Remington, Indiana closed a couple of years ago. Several others have had their sidings and/or switches removed in the past decade or so. TP&W also serves Incobrasa Industries' soybean processing plant at Gilman (also served by CN). Fertilizer facilities at Crescent City, Illinois and Kentland, Goodland, Burnettsville and Idaville, Indiana still get service. Several have had switches removed in the past decade or so, or have relocated to new facilities which do not (yet?) have rail access, such as at Fairbury and Webster. TP&W serves a Plastic Express plastic pellet transload at the Hoosierlift. There also seems to be an occasional lumber load transloaded here as well. The TP&W is operator and lessee or the Winamac Southern Railway's Logansport-Bringhurst/Kokomo lines, which generates a lot of traffic now. Fertilizer/ag chemicals go to The Andersons at Logansport and Walton. Lehigh Hanson Cement at Clymers gets waste in COFC containers, used fuel oil, gypsum and maybe clay by rail, and ships bulk cement. Kokomo Grain Co. and OmniSource at Kokomo are also online. Online industrial development has taken off recently. The new Prairie Central Coop rail loop between Chenoa and Meadows (called "Greenfield") loads CSX-bound grain trains and receives wind turbine components. The Grainland Coop elevator at Cruger (just west of Eureka) expanded its track capacity to enable unit train loading, with a lot of CSX-bound trains sent east in recent months. The old Smith Logistics Co. building just east of I-65 (between Remington and the Hoosierlift) has been purchased by IntePlast, which will likely receive plastic pellets by rail. Sweetener Supply Corp. is planning to build a plant near the Hoosierlift as well, with inbound corn syrup, sugar, molasses and woodpulp arriving by rail. Waelz Sustainable Products is building a zinc recycling facility at Clymers, on the WSRY trackage. Inbound bag dust seems likely to arrive by rail. At Mapleton, TP&W has access to Caterpillar's Mapleton foundry, though there have been no rail shipments in several years (suppliers are local, finished products go by truck), but serves Growmark, Ingredion, Lonza, Evonik and Lanxess facilities. It delivers unit coal trains to Vistra Energy's E. D. Edwards Power Station at Sommer, Illinois (although this plant is slated to close in late 2022) and grain to ADM in Peoria. Morton Buildings transloads lumber at the East Peoria Yard, East Peoria Materials transloaded aggregate and salt, and Fort Transfer Company receives liquid herbicide at Morton on a remnant of Santa Fe's Pekin District. David P. Jordan Morton, Illinois (formerly bn13814)
Chuck FinleyI recently spent a day in Watseka for work and saw a couple TPW trains run through town, mainly covered hoppers. It looked like they were moving at 10-15mph maybe. Is there much traffic on that line anymore? And, aside from grain elevators, who are the customers? IIRC, it was once considered as a possible bridge line for ATSF-Indiana traffic. A bit nostalgic - my oldest son and I took a caboose ride on that line farther west when it was the TPW (again) a couple of decades ago. TFAI!
TP&W serves a number of elevators on its East End (East Peoria to Logansport). Those at Cruger, Gridley (2), Meadows, Greenfield (new rail loop), Weston, Fairbury, Piper City, LaHogue, Crescent City and Sheldon (on KB&S line), Illinois and at Goodland, Indiana are served at present. The elevator at Remington, Indiana closed a couple of years ago. Several others have had their sidings and/or switches removed in the past decade or so. TP&W also serves Incobrasa Industries' soybean processing plant at Gilman (also served by CN). Fertilizer facilities at Crescent City, Illinois and Kentland, Goodland, Burnettsville and Idaville, Indiana still get service. Several have had switches removed in the past decade or so, or have relocated to new facilities which do not (yet?) have rail access, such as at Fairbury and Webster. TP&W serves a Plastic Express plastic pellet transload at the Hoosierlift. There also seems to be an occasional lumber load transloaded here as well. The TP&W is operator and lessee or the Winamac Southern Railway's Logansport-Bringhurst/Kokomo lines, which generates a lot of traffic now. Fertilizer/ag chemicals go to The Andersons at Logansport and Walton. Lehigh Hanson Cement at Clymers gets waste in COFC containers, used fuel oil, gypsum and maybe clay by rail, and ships bulk cement. Kokomo Grain Co. and OmniSource at Kokomo are also online. Online industrial development has taken off recently. The new Prairie Central Coop rail loop between Chenoa and Meadows (called "Greenfield") loads CSX-bound grain trains and receives wind turbine components. The Grainland Coop elevator at Cruger (just west of Eureka) expanded its track capacity to enable unit train loading, with a lot of CSX-bound trains sent east in recent months. The old Smith Logistics Co. building just east of I-65 (between Remington and the Hoosierlift) has been purchased by IntePlast, which will likely receive plastic pellets by rail. Sweetener Supply Corp. is planning to build a plant near the Hoosierlift as well, with inbound corn syrup, sugar, molasses and woodpulp arriving by rail. Waelz Sustainable Products is building a zinc recycling facility at Clymers, on the WSRY trackage. Inbound bag dust seems likely to arrive by rail. At Mapleton, TP&W has access to Caterpillar's Mapleton foundry, though there have been no rail shipments in several years (suppliers are local, finished products go by truck), but serves Growmark, Ingredion, Lonza, Evonik and Lanxess facilities. It delivers unit coal trains to Vistra Energy's E. D. Edwards Power Station at Sommer, Illinois (although this plant is slated to close in late 2022) and grain to ADM in Peoria. Morton Buildings transloads lumber at the East Peoria Yard, East Peoria Materials transloaded aggregate and salt, and Fort Transfer Company receives liquid herbicide at Morton on a remnant of Santa Fe's Pekin District. David P. JordanMorton, Illinois(formerly bn13814)
Dr Leonard In my opinion, this is a serious missed opportunity to mitigate the Chicago congestion that CREATE is trying to fix.
I can see how the prospect of "handing-off" to Norfolk Southern at Kansas City, or WB junction, or even St Louis might give the western roads legitimate concern over short hauling itself.
But, BNSF handing-off to Norfolk Southern at Logansport, as opposed to Chicago, shouldn't be that big of a concession IF mitigating Chicago congestion is a worthwhile objective to the railroad.
So, you get back to the consideration of just how big a problem is Chicago, from the railroad's perspective. Is it something that they would materially like to do something about? Or is it simply a convenient grievance to loosen up funds for CREATE type projects?
I realize that relies upon a certain amount of backward looking re-evaluation of decisions that were made long ago. Monday morning quarterbacking is nothing if it is not a platform for finger pointing. But still, there are, and always have been alternatives to simply piling everything up on Chicago, and then complaining about the result.
Working only from memory (from David Jordan's videos of rail traffic in the Peoria area, posted on the "Peoria Rails" group), there is occasionally TP&W traffic east of Peoria, including some interchanged from CSX in Indiana. As to "bridge route" activity, Conrail canceled TP&W's eastern connection routing; and when a barge destroyed the TP&W's bridge over the Illinois River at Peoria the TP&W was severed and had to use the former P&PU to connect its two sections. With the abandonment of the M&StL ("The Peoria Gateway") and later the sale of the "west end" to (eventually) the Keokuk Junction, the TP&W lost any western through route connections except BNSF's Peoria branch from Galesburg, and BNSF isn't interestedin shorting itself from its Chicago connections. As to any routing to BNSF's former ATSF "Transcon" through the Keokuk Junction's connection at Lomax, the KJ is a slow line (maybe 15-20 mph at most?) with light rail, and the connection from La Harpe to Lomax is currently used for car storage. These factors inhibit any resumption of Peoria as a gateway bypassing Chicago, leaving TP&W limited to industrial traffic in the Peoria area plus whatever it can get from its eastern CSX connection and various elevators, etc. along the way. In my opinion, this is a serious missed opportunity to mitigate the Chicago congestion that CREATE is trying to fix.
Convicted OneProbably one of the more remarkable things about the TPW track, is that it never got pulled up and survives to this day? Lots of other lines of similar heritage are gone. I guess we can thank Santa Fe for it's survival giving it purpose during the "bloodbath" era?
One of the primary reasons the TP&W kept going in the late 80's and early 90's was the coal traffic to the Edwards power plant in the Peoria area. These coal trains were received from CSX via the connection to the UP/CSX joint line at Watseka. Ironically, the actual interchange occurred a few miles south of Watseka at Coaler (used to be a coal dock located here back in the C&EI days). There were long storage tracks on both sides of the double track mainline that could be used to stash the loads and empties away on if CSX and the TP&W couldn't arrange a rendezvous. My memory is fading on this, but I think it amounted to at least 2-3 coal trains per week.
I don't remember when the TP&W lost this traffic, but it did help keep the line in business after it was sold off by the Santa Fe. I lived 20 miles south of Watseka at the time and it was hard to find any TP&W trains moving during daylight hours. Most trains on the east end back then seemed to only run at night/early morning.
Here are a few photo links from that era:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wales23/32522264656
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wales23/32410270642
The last few years I traveled US 24 from I-55 to Gilman regularly; very occasional TP&W traffic -- sometimes an early morning eastbound movement; around Gilman in the late afternoon (4-5 p.m.) often interchange and switching work, with a locomotive tied up westbound for the night; I've also caught movement east of Gilman around the noon hour. Very hit and miss.
Hoosier Lift was a great idea and the traffic department sold the hell out of it. However, the operating department did not cooperate. The train out of Hoosier Lift would get to Fort Madison and have to sit a day until the next train to the west coast. That doomed Hoosier Lift to an early death. You could ingate a load at Corwith and it would get out to LA in four to five days. If you ingated at Hoosier Lift, the transit would be an additional day. the ATSF could have better coordinated the arrival of the train at Ft Madison with a transcon train, but it didn't. Great idea, piss poor planning.
Chuck FinleyIncobrassa is a big soybean processor, so I assume they work year-round. I might be back down there in a few weeks; maybe I can spend some time trackside when, of course, NOTHING will run. LOL.
Well, by all means, take a camera, and report back to us. I'm curious!!
Incobrassa looks like an interesting operation, their website is worth a visit. They seem to claim that much of their business is via truck, and serving their customers fleets of rail cars, but they claim to have their own rolling stock as well.
Probably one of the more remarkable things about the TPW track, is that it never got pulled up and survives to this day? Lots of other lines of similar heritage are gone. I guess we can thank Santa Fe for it's survival giving it purpose during the "bloodbath" era?
And probably thank the fertile soils of Illinois for it's continued survival in this day and age.
Convicted One ...normally in such an aerial "flyover" you see at least some activity. I found next to none. There appear to be sidings still in service at many sizeable Ag operations.....but scant tangible proof that any of them are being serviced. Likely a different story during harvest season? A substantial number of cars on industry siding with nearby power on standby at Gilman IL, Incobrasa Industries, Other than that, this line truly seems barren. With all the sidings at Ag facilities, I'd guess this railroad must earn it's keep during the soybean/corn season.
...normally in such an aerial "flyover" you see at least some activity. I found next to none.
There appear to be sidings still in service at many sizeable Ag operations.....but scant tangible proof that any of them are being serviced. Likely a different story during harvest season?
A substantial number of cars on industry siding with nearby power on standby at Gilman IL, Incobrasa Industries,
Other than that, this line truly seems barren. With all the sidings at Ag facilities, I'd guess this railroad must earn it's keep during the soybean/corn season.
There are trains on TP&W that turn south at Reynolds and exchange cars at the old Monon (CSX) yard in Lafayette. What I have seen have been mostly hoppers, source unknown. Only once in almost 50 years of driving Indiana 43 have I ever been stopped by a TP&W train in Reynolds, and it was coming from the east, which is even more rare. Sometimes there will be hopper cars in the wind turbine transfer area, some with locomotives sometimes not. I will join with those in not having seen many trains from US 24, which I have driven many times (and hitchhiked a few times) over the past 50 years.
PR
[quote user="Convicted One"
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/211083.aspx?page=3#2316292
"Abandoned lines - what would look good on today's map?"
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/252222.aspx
Hopefully, that heated up the links (?)
[/quote]
Not sure how much "bypass Chicago" business is still around.
First of all, the number of boxcar trains has greatly diminished over the years. BNSF / NS runs a daily train from Streator to Kankakee to NS. It usually is about 80 cars.
Intermodal trains off of BNSF for the east to either CSX or NS quite often pickup containers in Chicago for the destination.
There are ethanol and crude oil trains, but that is not enough to support the by pass lines.
Coal - enough said.
Grain - NS runs quite a few grain trains out of Kankakee area, perhaps 5 a week.
Six years ago there was enough business to consider by pass routing, today not so much.
Ed
The thought of using the TPW or the Kankakee branch as a bypass around Chicago has come up a few times prior.
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/252222.aspx?page=1
Have to copy and paste the links I'm afraid, not sure if it's just because the link to material is local, but the forum software won't allow me to lite em up.
greyhounds The Minneapolis & St. Louis, which terminated in Peoria, is gone.
They are the ones who had "Peoria Gateway" emblazoned on the side of their rolling stock, weren't they?
MidlandMike So what would justify a second bypass line.
Every now and then after they resume bawling about needing more C.R.E.A.T.E. money to fix whatever nightmare du jour stands obstacle to their survival, thats usually when I start thinking about the alternatives they have squandered away that could have worked, ostensibly even better.
Well, the White Sox have been postponed due to rain so I might as well chime in.
Peoria, IL was a "Gateway." It was a small time rival to interchange between east and west at Chicago and/or St. Louis. It was also the "Big City" for us small town folks of central Illinois. It even had medical specialists such as the pediatrician who did me a world of good when I got a peanut in to a lung at age two. The local small town doctor kind of missed that.
We'd go to Peoria maybe twice a year, aside from the pediatrician visits. Once for Christmas shopping and once more in the summer when the folks ran out of something that needed to be sourced in a big city such as Peoria.
Because it was a "Gateway" many railroads built branches in to Peoria or nearby Pekin. Off the top of my head I'll list: Illinois Central, GM&O, they had two, New York Central, Pennsylvania, Nickle Plate, Rock Island (two branches), Santa Fe (from the east!) and CB&Q. The TP&W was kind of unique in that it passed through Peoria. It linked the Pennsylvania from Indiana to the Santa Fe in Iowa. It was a Chicago/St. Louis bypass. The Tip Up also took Peoria traffic to and from those important connections.
Peoria/Pekin business was nothing to sneeze at. Lots of good, old fashioned, midwest industry. Again, off the top of my head; Caterpillar's main factories, Hiram Walker (the worlds largest bourbon distillery), a Pabst brewery, Keystone Steel and Wire, various meat packing facilities and a major livestock market, Corn Products (Pekin) and LeTourneau Westinghourse (another heavy construction equipment manufacturer.) There were other traffic sources.
The TP&W would take Peoria origin/destination business to the Santa Fe or Pennsylvania. BUT! The Penssy had its own branch to Peoria, so that was limited. A lot, but not all, of the industries were served by a neutral switching carrier, the Peoria and Pekin Union. They served the big one, Caterpillar. The P&PU had double track between Peoria and Pekin. The IC, NYC, and Santa Fe (from the east!) branches actually went to Pekin, IL. The IC and NYC trains used this double track to reach the P&PU yard in East Peoria. So did the C&IM.
This all pretty much worked until: 1) the industries began to shut down or relocate and, 2) ConRail cancelled its through rates with the TP&W. This took a lot of business off the TP&W. The branch lines to Peoria became obsolete and were abandoned. Both former GM&O lines are gone, the Pennsylvania and New York Central lines are gone, one of the former Rock Island lines is gone. The Minneapolis & St. Louis, which terminated in Peoria, is gone.
Hey, things change.
For some unknown reason the Santa Fe bought the TP&W and upgraded it with welded rail. This didn't work out. The old TP&W is now split between G&W east of Peoria and Keokuk Junction west of Peoria. They don't have a lot of business.
The TP&W was interesting because of its locomotive roster. It seemed they bought one or two of anything and everything. They had old Alco hood units, F Units, Alco Century units, one GP40, etc.
All the class 1s have to go to Chicago anyway to serve that large market. So what would justify a second bypass line. Railfans and probably shippers can see reasons why. However, Fred Frailey said that class 1s don't seem to consider transfers a priority. Once they get the car to Chicago, they figure transfers are the connecting railroad's problem. The "final round" of mergers combining the lines coast to coast will solve the Chicago problem. They might even consider a bypass.
Currently owned by the BNSF. Will check to see if anyone on one of the forums that belong to has any current information on the ex TP&W.
Anyway, my initial observation was just a "perhaps", so I'm not sure it's worthy of much more debate than we've already given it.
Yeah, my comment about "not working out as a Chicago bypass" pretty much took the demise of Hoosierlift as a foregone conclusion, and really was more pointed towards why the TPW has not THEREAFTER been used as a bridge between eastern and western roads AS A MEANS TO BYPASS CHICAGO.
We've had discussion here before pondering why this line, (or even the Kankakee branch as an alternative) are not employed as bypass routes to avoid the congestion in Chicago. And I don't believe that any of those discussions contemplated possible limiting capacity of the extant bridges on the line.
Perhaps the cost of upgrading all those bridges made this line a less attractive alternative, is what I guess I am saying.
Santa Fe's plans to transport vans from the highways would not have been concerned with 263000# loads. I am not aware of that heavy traffic on the TP&W line.
Weren't they using 263,000# as the car limit in the 1980's?
Seems like I recall reading somewhere around 1999-2000 in Trains magazine that the heavier limit was going to make some lines obsolete.
Don't think bridges were a probem in in mid-1980's because Santa Fe had excellent bridge people to advise Mr. Cena
One other thing I noticed, again just from the perspective of Google, so there obvious;y is no science involved.
But this line appears to be plagued by many, many small bridges over small creeks, where the bridges themselves appear questionable for 286K traffic.
Perhaps that has something to do with why this line never really panned out as a Chicago bypass? (subsequent to the demise of Hoosierlift)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Well, I got curious in regard to this line's apparent dormancy, so I followed it via Google maps from Monticello IN west to Peoria IL. And while it doesn't "prove" anything...normally in such an aerial "flyover" you see at least some activity. I found next to none.
Other than that,... just an odd assortment of cars standing on innerchange wyes here and there at various junctions, and a single industrial building having it's own siding in Gridley IL, here is what else I did find:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7646843,-88.0187524,595m/data=!3m1!1e3
Relic of an old turntable in Forrest IL
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7495969,-88.4067373,286m/data=!3m1!1e3
This train parked on a siding in Fairbury, with no opposiing or overtaking traffic anywhere in sight, anyone know what kind of cars those might be?
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7466197,-88.5187134,72m/data=!3m1!1e3
A "continuous loading" facility Between Chenoa and Gridley:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7470632,-88.7703384,1146m/data=!3m1!1e3
This train operating in East Peoria
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6706577,-89.5384097,72m/data=!3m1!1e3
The Railroad's yard in East Peoria
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6693537,-89.5513233,574m/data=!3m1!1e3
Convicted One It seems to me that all those benefits are as tangible today as they were 30 years ago, if not more so. What changed?
It seems to me that all those benefits are as tangible today as they were 30 years ago, if not more so. What changed?
The merger with BN ?
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