Iowa Interstate PESI, Union Pacific Coal MTs 5-18-25 (UPDATE)

I heard the dispatcher give it permission to head north on the Peoria Subdivision, so when it took awhile to catch up to it, I figured it had to be short. 

 

It was. 

 

Kind of a neat one though. Behind the ES44AC were two empty covered hoppers and five loaded tank cars, all placarded as UN 3065, or "alcoholic beverage." I'll dub this one the "Vodka Special." Don't know if the five cars came from BioUrja in Peoria or Alto Pekin LLC or Alto ICP in Pekin.

 

I'm curious about their destination. Typically, they are consigned to a distillery that is resuming operations after a maintenance shutdown or to a liquor blending and packaging facility. Although the cars are likely to be handled all the way to Silvis, I suspect they will moving back east on manifest CRBI (Cedar Rapids IA to Blue Island IL) to a Chicago connection. 

CAPTION: Iowa Interstate Railroad manifest PESI (Peoria IL to Silvis IL) rolls along the Peoria Subdivision through Mossville, Rome and Chillicothe, Illinois late-morning Sunday, May 18, 2025. IAIS 512 has seven cars. Two empty covered hoppers and five loaded tank cars placarded UN 3065 for beverage alcohol potentially makes this one a "Vodka Special."

 

This afternoon, I got a heads up on a Union Pacific meet at Edelstein, and I was going to be on the other side of the river this evening anyway, so I went up to W. County Line Road, the first crossing past the north siding switch and waited.

 

The southbound showed up maybe 20 minutes later at 1720 hours. Minutes later, the northbound crept out of the siding and onto mainline. The former was empty, so perhaps this was for the Gateway Mine at Coulterville? The latter was an empty out of Powerton, at least some of the cars at NRG Energy markings. 

CAPTION: The Union Pacific staged a meet at Edelstein, Illinois between a loaded southbound and empty northbound coal train late-afternoon Sunday, May 18, 2025. First one had UP 6743, UP 6248 and UP 7901 on the point. Second one, coming out of Powerton, had UP 7184 and UP 7105 on the point.

 

- David P. Jordan