TP&W, Iowa Interstate Action Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Late Wednesday morning, I happened across a Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway "Collier Turn" crawling into the Tazewell & Peoria Railroad's East Peoria Yard. HESR 3485 and TPW 5010 have 53 cars. The train left the last 28 for TZPR and went across the river to deliver 25 grain loads to ADM's South Yard. The scene below was shot just off W. Washington Street in East Peoria. 


Seeing the TP&W train was nice but my mission was to catch the Iowa Interstate Railroad's manifest PESI (Peoria IL to Silvis IL). This train's counterpart, SIPE (Silvis IL to Peoria IL) normally arrives East Peoria before sunrise. A new crew is called, and the train leaves town before this second-shift worker is awake! But on this day, a source informed me after 9:00 am that the train was doing its air-test prior to departure, so I headed into East Peoria/Creve Coeur to confirm.

The train finally left around noon. I had lunch plans; otherwise I would have recorded the train's passage at mainline speed (25mph) somewhere north of Peoria, but I had to settle for the first public spot available, which was off Leland Street at Bridge Junction in Peoria. IAIS 516 and IAIS 508 have 119 cars. 

Most of the train was typical - grain mash and grain empties from ADM and CHS (Pekin) dominated. Empty tank cars were likely from Gavilon's North Pekin facility, to which Cargill's Cedar Rapids, Iowa refinery has been shipping quite a few soybean oil loads this winter. Five alcohol loads (four denatured alcohol, one beverage alcohol) and four coil steel loads made it more interesting that usual. 


- David P. Jordan

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