TP&W-BNSF Coal Empties Detour Over Union Pacific! 5-27-22



Now that the Tazewell & Peoria Railroad's Illinois River Bridge is out of service for repairs (estimated to be three weeks), the only alternative is to detour traffic over the Union Pacific between Crescent Junction (near Pekin) and the UP-TZPR connection near Sommer.

The CN track geometry train moved this way on Wednesday. An Iowa Interstate train tied up at the North Limit Yard around noon Friday, with plans to have a TZPR crew pull it through town and then across the UP bridge to Powerton. It isn't clear whether the crew will runaround its power there and run up the double track to East Peoria, but a lot of outbound empties are ready to head north. Hopefully, they will do this on Saturday. 

Also Friday afternoon, I got my first detour move!

Anyway, a Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway crew handled an empty BNSF coal train from the Illinois & Midland Railroad's Powerton Yard to Peoria via Crescent Junction, Union Pacific's Peoria Subdivision and TZPR's Southern Division/Kickapoo Main.

BNSF 5736 led 135 cars while BNSF 9229 was DPU. Captions detail action in each scene.

- David P. Jordan

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