Howdy from Havana ,Illinois.

The day I seen Keokuk Junction Railway over in East Peoria near Washington street was an odd sight and I was told a rare one so considering  I survived another surgery procedure that day then to catch that I  consider it a lucky day.  I actually caught them crossing the bridge in Peoria so crossed over to East Peoria.  At the time  thought the Creve Coure one and the East Peoria yard were all one big one part of each other.  Nope. Thanks for people for informing me about that there was the one at Wesley road and the one in East Peoria.  I've made it a point to get more familiar with East Peoria since. Blah blah blah moving on from my mindless chatter. How I ended up here I came out of surgery and after a waiting recovery time to wake up my brother n law started to drive us home from OSF hospital.  He doesn't know Peoria and kept asking for directions and I couldn't talk since I had a procedure on my throat.  I got irritated trying to point directions and just yelled oh he

On November 5, 2015 while I was in Peoria I was lucky enough to catch TZPR 's Sw10 #1351 pick up some cars at the PMP facility in Peoria, Illinois.   I think a friend David told me it was Corn syrup or something.   Anyways it was a pretty cool catch.  The conductor threw the switch and the locomotive  went  and coupled onto the load at PMP and came back on the main line then headed off a few minutes later.  It was a rainy day but worth getting soaked. I'm guessing they headed off to bridge junction and crossed over into the yard.  I didn't follow it.  This was a cool little find.  I haven't caught anything there since but I have seen TZPR in various locations since so maybe one day will get lucky again but this time will have a scanner handy whenever it happens.   I think that was the most mentionable find  rail wise activity I found but time was limited that day so didn't really get to explore until i found something else.  I did look  more in

The last few months I was able to catch two trains down in Mason County where I rarely ever catch trains.  I know they go through there but I'm never down there at the same time or days.  I lucked out these two days.  In February  I  went down to Havana looking more into the old Illinois Central right of way I managed to see a few parked locomotives at the Havana power plant which I never see. I used to work down at Intermet Havana foundry for over a year and would see coal trains from time to time working third shift.  I would either have to wait on them before going in or sometimes watched them on lunch break since a few of us liked hanging around outside.  I also remember seeing  other trains up near Forest City and Manito areas I assume now at the time were Illinois & Midland.  After  2003 I don't remember seeing anything in Havana or on this line other that cars stored on some siding. So  I was happy when I finally caught something. The BNSF coal train sitting

Due to having a hernia and having surgery on it I probably won't be doing much railfanning in the next 4 to 6 weeks.  I'm on a lifting restriction and driving ban due to medication that makes me drowsy also I'm rather sore. Sorry to my friend Windle our trip next month will be put off until I recover.  This all depends on how recovery goes ofcourse.  So far been good I'm up walking around now despite being sore.  I have to be careful when sitting as well as move around.  At the moment on a 5 lb lifting restriction which will be increased each week. The driving  restriction will suck since I like my independence but it is what it is and I survived this ordeal so I'll live with it.  I might rehash old railfanning trips until I recover enough to go back out. Anyways hope anyone reading this is doing well.  :) **Thanks to friends for well wishes & Thanks David for your comment**

While I was out heard KJRY pulling through Canton so I go travel along side the tracks and then headed off to an old Train stop of Rawalts about a mile east of Canton.  It was a train stop with a depot founded by Jonas Rawalts in the 1800's and was a stop for the TP&W Railroad.  It never materialized into anything other than a train stop and a few house and maybe a store back back then. Today a side track the mainline and a few houses plus an old structure that could have been an old depot here or something related is here on a dirt road east of Canton. Enough  with the small history lesson I go park off the dirt road next to the tracks where i came here during the Santa Train event  last year in around the same spot. Naturally it would have to rain a little which was fine was wanting to test out camera in that type of conditions anyway. KJRY was lead by the f unit #1752, B unit #1761 and then my girl  the other f unit #1750.  The GP20 was no where in sight.  

Each year many people lost their lives or get seriously injured in accidents involving trains and quite often it's because someone got impatient and tried to beat a train instead of just waiting the few minutes.  Is it really worth your life for those few extra minutes?  How much of a hurry can you be in?  When the lights start flashing and the gates lower it means stop not speed up.  There are rules to the roads books at the DMV that will tell you to stop. If you do manage to meet it with a train you will not win.  They weight many many tons beyond that to your  tiny vehicle.  To a train your car is just a can it can easily crush.  This video I took a while back shows someone racing to beat the train passing in front of it when the gates were almost halfway down and the lights were flasing.  It's just an example and probably not the best one since there are many videos out there of car and train collisons as well as news stories.  This is hardly the first time I seen someone

I see there is an upcoming election for the Mayor's seat in the city of Canton and so far that I know of three are running.  They had a section about all three in video chat on separate threads on the Daily Ledger.  I posted questions and responded to all three.  Only one of those responded which says alot right there.  I already know our current mayor could careless about the growth or bettering this town due to his inactions during this past term.  The only thing that managed to be built here was an O'Reilly's auto parts store and the incoming Dunkin Donuts.  Wow, this saves our town and adds alot of job and potential.  Not.  The mayor in another article went to say the clean up from last November's explosion down town is near the end.  Oh really so is that why alot of buildings are still boarded up and the huge pile of rubble remains behind the Opera house.  Are we just going to let that sit for years like Canton did in the past with the IH plant fire rubble. Ar

They announced the JC Penny Store in Canton is one of the stores they will be closing not that I'm suprised by it.  JC Pennies mentioned closing stores a month or so back but didn't announce where.  They finally announced a few local stores and Canton was amongst them.  Shocker! So  when they do close it down not only will some people lose jobs but be another empty building to add to the others this town has.  I have heard a Lumber company wants to open where the old K-Mart store was so maybe that might give this town a slight boost or atleast make it not look so empty.  Walmart will always prevail here so no matter what closes down here  you can sure bet they'll survive.  I shop there for things on sale so they are a god send really for those on limted budgets so not knocking them.  We do however need more variety in this town so we don't have to drive thirty miles or more to shop in some other town.  JC Penny and it's closure is hardly the city of Canton's fau

This is part 2 of 2 to the trip to Illinois so this part covers only the Iowa end of it.  We crossed the River at Rock Island to Davenport and explored some.  We seen quite a few CP locomotives while over there.  I have never  photographed Canadian Pacific at all so this was a new experience.  WE hung around Schmidt Road then went to Wapello  then Railroad street to view the CP yard.   Their yard has a turn table and looks like a small round house sort of building and quite a few tracks. Not too far from it is a Marsh like park you can pull into and watch trains if you wished.  We just didnt see any active ones pulling through other than a locomotive moving cars back into the yard off Schmidt but he backed in before  we could film but got some pictures so not at all a loss. I also noticed an exempt track off Rockingham road that looked like it hasnt been used in a while I'm kind of curious about so will have to google it. After Davenport I drove us down to Muscatine to see what t

There is so much to cover just going to make a two parter for this one of  the Illinois side and the other of the Iowa side.  We took a trip to the Quad Cities on both sides of the  Mississippi River. We explored Certain areas like of Barstow, Silvis, Princeton, Moline and Rock Island.  We started off  going by Kolbe near Mapleton and seen a TP&W locomotive on one track and a KJRY on the other preparing for their Peoria run I guess.  The lights were on but I wanted to make good time so didn't hang long.  We head up Route 29 hoping to catch an IAIS train of some sort all the way to Bureau Junction then caught 26 and went to Princeton.  While at Princeton took photographs of an old CB&Q caboose and the old CB&Q Princeton depot.  We then go catch I-80 and drove what seemed like forever for me to the Quad Cities.  I think it was 58 miles from Princeton to be exact or something in the 50 ish range.   I believe it or not remembered what routes i planned and didn't really

Today was a good day I actually  caught some action on the IAIS line north of Peoria for a change instead of either seeing nothing or their trucks inspecting the tracks.  It's been a good number of years since I even seen a train north of Peoria on that line.  I stayed with a co worker for the night one night back in 2002 or 2003 up by Mossville or Rome ( I forget what the town was we took route 6 to get there) and  we seen a train pass by acrossed the street.  I was testing my camera filming a UP train at the chilli sub in Chillicothe and hear chatter of NS power over the scanner so I start heading south figuring there might be an IAIS train somewhere.  Yup there was it had NS power hauling grain empties by what i was told and the destination is Des Moines, Iowa.  I took pictures around Mossville and Rome then filmed it up at Chillicothe not far from the old Rock Island depot.  Tommorrow a friend and I are going up to the Quad cities to try our luck with IAIS up th