Peoria Station

The weather on this final day of 2018 should have kept me indoors, but I found some local train action instead. First, I caught Norfolk Southern's local D49 arriving the Tazewell & Peoria Railroad's East Peoria (IL) Yard early this afternoon. NS 3375 & NS 3221 have 49 cars (my second encounter in two months that the train's car count and symbol were coincidentally the same). The nine coil steel loads are mostly likely to be interchanged to Iowa Interstate. The Tazewell & Peoria Railroad ran a transfer to the TP&W's East Peoria Yard shortly after the NS pulled in. TZPR 1520 delivered 23 cars to the TP&W then returned engine lite. This unit is an ex-Apalachicola & Northern SW-1500. Next, I had a dilemma. Canadian National's Peoria Local was in town, and had been given permission to depart so I waited briefly at Wesley Road. The train stopped, and moments later, I heard the dispatcher give D49 permission to depart. I chose...

Road freights operated by the Toledo, Peoria & Western can be elusive, especially in daylight, so any chance to capture their movement must be taken when possible.  I took the opportunity Sunday, December 30, 2018 to intercept and then chase one of those elusive TP&W freights from near Secor to East Peoria. A pair of TP&W SD40-2s, resplendent in standard orange paint of parent Genesee & Wyoming Inc., lead 86 cars west a short distance past of Secor, Illinois. The first 25 cars were set out at Grainland Cooperative's Cruger elevator. After setting out 25 Incobrasa-marked empties at Grainland Cooperative's Cruger elevator a new crew got onboard. Shortened to 61 cars, the whole train is shown at both Washington and on the Farmdale Trestle entering East Peoria, Illinois.  Twenty-five carloads of corn are probably for Archer Daniels Midland Co. (or ADM Grain Co.'s barge loadout) in Peoria. A 20-car block of CSX-marked covered hoppers contai...

Frequent happenings continued into the 1990s so I'll continue with my yearly theme for awhile longer.  The Peoria Journal Star  carried a piece the last day of 1989 in which reporter Stephen Wittmer predicted stable economic growth into the next decade, but cautioned that improved airline service depended on an increase in our passenger base. (Growth did not necessarily require significant population growth*, but rather, a return to competitive air fares.) Suffice if to say, Peoria's local passenger base didn't grow in 1990, but the airport attracted two new airlines and learned of prospects for jet service to Chicago! Let's review airline happenings for the year. Specific flight details in the airline summary below were culled from the OAG's April 1990 Pocket Flight Guide . *Peoria's Metropolitan Statistical Area lost significant population in the 1980s. The 1980 census shows 365,774 residents in the Tri-County area but ten years later this number had...

Former president, George Herbert Walker Bush, left us at age 94 on November 30. His passing reminded me of video I shot of the Union Pacific locomotive which had been painted in presidential blue and white to coincide with the opening of Bush's presidential library and museum in College Station, Texas in 2005. I posted the video on December 1. Thanks to attention from international media, it went viral and as of early Thursday morning, has 27,839 views! Thanks to everyone who watched it! The video I posted was actually a decade old, having been recorded on October 31, 2008. UP 4141 led an intermodal train out of Los Angeles three days prior, traversed home rails to Kansas City and then BNSF's Transcon across Missouri and into Illinois. At Edelstein, it took the connection onto Union Pacific's Peoria Subdivision. Before returning to home rails, however, another unit in the consist ran into trouble, and was set out at on the UP line at Broadmoor (near Bradford) for repai...

BNSF Railway's Chillicothe Subdivision is the busy railroad (by far) in the Peoria area. It doesn't serve the city directly, rather it passes through the northern fringes of Peoria County, serving Chillicothe, Edelstein and Princeville. Only one industry - Seneca Foods at Princeville - is served. So the line's value is to serve as a link between Chicago, Kansas City and markets south and west.  Sunday afternoon, December 16, 2018, I spent about three hours trackside (mostly Blue Ridge Road, just west of Chillicothe) and captured some amazing action! Recorded in this 16 minute, 38 second video are two meets - one between two intermodal trains and a second between two manifests. Final scenes record a chase I made on a westbound freight which left the Chillicothe Yard.  - David P. Jordan

As the 1980s were closing, PIA officials expressed an optimistic view of the future and pushed for growth opportunities. It was strange though that GPAA chairman Gerald Shaheen was quoted in the Peoria Journal Star' s May 18 issue as saying in response to a propose mag-lev train project, "If it's a natural flow of development, how could you stop it? We have said all along our future is in handling freight, not in passengers ." Whether his indifference to passengers was based solely on the possibility of a mag-lev train connecting Peoria with major cities or a general attitude based on expectations of future challenges is unclear. But it does appear airport officials were contradicting themselves at times.  With that in mind, here is a rundown of air service happenings for 1989. I possess only two Official Airline Guides (North American Edition - Pocket Flight Guide) for that year - February and March - so details will be more limited than in prior years. En...

Saturday, December 8, 2018, the Keokuk Junction Railway operated its eleventh annual Santa Train. The usual stops were made at Mapleton, Glasford, Breeds, Canton, Cuba and Smithfield. Also as usual, residents brought their children to confide in Santa Claus their Christmas wishes and to receive candy courtesy of the railroad.  Video lasts 18 minutes, 47 seconds, but I hope you'll enjoy it from beginning to end! - David P. Jordan

See this post for highlights of the prior ten KJRY Santa Trains in the years 2008-2017. - David P. Jordan

My only encounter with the Union Pacific Railroad locomotive painted in Presidential blue and white to commemorate the "George Bush Presidential Library," was on October 31, 2008. The day turned out to be quite an adventure! Intermodal train KSGAP2 28 (Intermodal, Global Gateway South, American President Lines, Second Section, Date of Departure) left Los Angeles, California October 28, running the Sunset Route to El Paso, Texas and up the Golden State Route to Kansas City, then via trackage rights on competitor BNSF Railway’s Marceline and Chillicothe Subs to the Edelstein Connection where the train returned to home rails (Union Pacific's Peoria Subdivision). Unfortunately, a wheel slip problem on the UP 1988 (Missouri-Kansas-Texas heritage unit) forced the train to stop at Milepost 145, near North Rice Road, a few miles short of the connection. After assessing the situation, the train crew crept up to the crossing so a BNSF maintenance crew could get to th...