Peoria Station

After work, I made my usual trip to the downtown library, with appropriate detours.   After exiting I-74 in East Peoria, I noticed what I thought might be a Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway train preparing to shove a few tank cars out of the west end of the yard and run Norfolk Southern's Bloomington District to Crandall Junction and then into Morton. Turns out, it was probably just a short train returning from Collier Yard in Bartonville.   Shortly, I heard the Tazewell & Peoria Railroad dispatcher give BNSF's M-GALPEI permission to enter his property at Darst Street when river traffic cleared and the bridge was lowered. That gave me time to get to Krause Avenue in time to capture the train's passage.  CAPTION: BNSF Railway train M-GALPEI (Manifest, Galesburg IL to Peoria IL) has just entered Tazewell & Peoria Railroad property at Darst Street in Peoria, Illinois late-afternoon Monday, September 22, 2025. BNSF 7167 and BNSF 6748 have 30 cars for the Eas...

The Tazewell & Peoria Railroad's Illinois River Bridge outage has forced a re-route of a Havana-bound wind turbine tower train. Instead of moving on BNSF Railway to TZPR's Pekin main at Hilliards, it was delivered to Union Pacific at Kansas City and routed via St. Louis and interchanged to the Illinois & Midland RR at Ridgely (Springfield). I intercepted it just south of Oakford, turned around and got into town in the nick of time! BNSF 8055 and BNSF 4992 have 66 cars. BNSF 4278 was DPU. Locations are Oakford, E. County Road 1100 N. (near Havana Regional Airport) and pulling through the wye into Quiver Yard just east of Havana. The train originated at Vestas America Wind Technology in Minnequa, Colorado and was routed BNSF-Kansas City-UP-Springfield-IMRR to Havana Rail & Dock at Havana, Illinois.  - David P. Jordan

I checked Hilliards this morning, and no power was on the point of a wind turbine blade train BNSF brought into town this morning. I checked again almost exactly four hours later, and the train began to move as soon as a northbound Tazewell & Peoria Railroad local from Pekin went by. Due to lighting, I waited until downtown Pekin to shoot any video. Despite being on the wrong side light, I also shot a power runby as it passed Alto Pekin LLC's wet corn mill. Then I shot the whole train at Fuelberth Road (just out of Powerton). IMRR 2084 and TPW 2056 were on the point. Train is enroute to Havana.  - David P. Jordan