Gritty, Industrial Railroading - Union Pacific. Int'l Paper. Lincoln, Illinois.
Saturday morning, I caught Union Pacific's LSF51 (Bloomington IL to Carlinville IL) local switching International Paper Co. in Lincoln, Illinois. Built in 1947 by U. S. Corrugated, the "box factory" is located on a remnant of Illinois Central Railroad's Havana District, and employs about 100. Boise Cascade purchased the plant in 1984 and Willamette purchased it in 1992. Willamette added a warehouse (including an enclosure for boxcar unloading) in 2002 about which time the company was acquired by its competitor, Weyerhaeuser Co. Six years later, International Paper Co. acquired Weyerhaeuser's corrugated packaging operations. Like many light-density, grain belt branchlines, Illinois Central's Havana District suffered from motor carrier competition and proximity to river barge service. Successor Illinois Central Gulf abandoned most of the line in segments between 1981 and 1987. All that is left are three sections at Lincoln, Clinton and Champaign-Seym...