TP&W EP-3 and UP-CN Decatur Coal Train 2-19-23

Sunday afternoon I checked TP&W's East Peoria Yard where I found a crew working the west end with MQT 3407 and TPW 1538. I deducted that they were building a train for Collier Yard, but thought I had time to go home.

I returned less than an hour later to find the train gone. I found it on the Nickel Plate, waiting for a TZPR train to enter the East Peoria Yard from the Pekin mainline. The bridge was up, so I parked off the Foot of Sanger Street and waited. 

I decided to mix it up a bit and include video of a barge tow passing beneath the bridge. Excited geese are seen between the beginning and the end. I also included the bridge being lowered for the TP&W train. 


CAPTION: A barge tow floats by, exciting the geese before the Tazewell & Peoria RR Illinois River Bridge comes down for the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway's EP-3 Job. Shown at Peoria, Illinois mid-afternoon Sunday, February 19, 2023, MQT 3407 and TPW 1538 have 13 cars - five for Mapleton industries and eight for the Union Pacific interchange at Collier Yard in Bartonville. Later, the train stops short of Iowa Junction so the conductor can line the switch for the Union Pacific-owned, TP&W-dispatched, ex-Peoria Terminal Company line.

Before the TP&W received permission to cross the river, a Union Pacific crew radioed the TZPR St. Albans (VT) dispatcher for permission to run from Darst Street to the end of Main 2 at Pekin. This was a Decatur-bound coal train for Canadian National that tied up on the Low Line by late-Friday evening or early-Saturday morning.

A CN crew was on its way and ended up taking over from the UP at Grove. The train blocked Wesley Road's south crossing, so I had to backtrack north to Rt. 29. I ended up getting some good video of this train with both UP and CN crews.


CAPTION: A Union Pacific coal train was interchanged to Canadian National at Grove on the Tazewell & Peoria Railroad's Pekin double track late-afternoon Sunday, February 19, 2023. UP 7954 and NS 8087 have 131 coal loads. UP 6737 is DPU. Scenes are at Adams Street Yard and Hilliards with a Union Pacific crew, and IC Junction (Pekin) and South Pekin with a Canadian National crew. Train is bound for ADM's Co-Generation Facility in Decatur, Illinois.

- David P. Jordan

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