Feb 4, 2017 Chillicothe sub trip with a friend

I'll be honest on this blog i would rather be yapping on about railfanning activity than this misc stuff i'm going on about like my family history.  I'm cool with writing about coal mines to which might interest people  my family history however will not.  We're boring people and always have been for the most part as far back as i have traced.  No one became famous or did anything too interesting. They came to America, they farmed and the bred pretty much sums up my family.  On the other hand it does give them sort of a memorial and shout out so i guess it's not too bad to write about  history as boring as it may be.  Yeah, I'm in a rut at the moment other words broke and cars run on this  thing called gasoline so pretty much limited on what i can do at the moment. In the meantime will rehash old trips I guess. I would much rather be there than here but  I should keep that opinion to myself.  Haha.

 Anyway going to relive Feb 4, 2017 when I went railfanning with a friend.  We go railfan the chillicothe sub and even go to Edelstein .  We catch trains there and a friend on Facebook gave some heads up on trains that would be coming  to Chillicothe in a matter of minutes.   We also caught a train at the curve to the west of Chilli but my old camera screwed the video up naturally.




After our chilli ride we head back down to Peoria where my friend mentioned Kellar Branch so we take Knoxville up to Catch Pioneer Parkway to see if Pioneer was storing cars yet.   As far as I know they were not but they did have a locomotive parked behind these businesses a GP20  #3069.  That was kind of cool seeing. We left and went home after that mainly because we were running out of time in the day before darkness set in.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fulton County, Illinois Ghost towns Part 1

Image
Ghost towns are abandoned villages that since disappeared or are no longer the population they were in their hey day after an economic down fall, disaster or whatever.  For me I consider a ghost town a town that no longer exists but may or may not leave traces behind of it's existence.  Fulton County has a lot of old historical towns like Canton which was founded in 1825 and Lewistown which was founded  years before Canton.  These towns are example of towns that managed to make it despite economic disasters and natural ones. Former towns which have signs marking their location like Civer between Canton and Cuba and Tuscumbia around Bernadotte are examples of towns that didn't make it and ceased to exist and into oblivion of history.  The only thing that is exists is those two signs that mark the location.  It's sad in a way but it is what it is and people who lived in these areas did what they had to for survival of the time period so if they moved to other communities can
Read more

Middle Grove- Rapatee Coal mine

Image
This subject is about the coal mine at Middle Grove and Rapatee areas. I basically just know the years and also what Railroads served them but i did get to photograph the area of this so there is a general idea of this.   The Midland Electric Coal Company has several strip mines within Fulton and Knox Counties from the years 1933-1963 ( Fulton County, strip),1963-1967 (Knox County strip), and Peabody Coal Company which  opened in 1968 and closed around that time or 1969. The mine would open once again and be the Middle Grove-Rapatee mine in 1975 or 1976 under the Midland Coal Company I think.  It ran until 1988 but the last rail shipment was in or around 1986 by the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad.   Another company nearby or in this vicinity would be the Midstate Coal Company  which was a strip mine and operated from 1989-1996.  Over the decades it used the area railroads before 1960 it was the M&STL would would ship their coal and after it was Chicago & Northwestern.  The
Read more

BNSF local chase (Peoria -Galesburg)

Image
Due to a tip off from a friend I managed to catch the BNSF local which would head west on the Peoria sub enroute to the yard in Galesburg,  Illinois. I had quite a day though it was cold and  for a bit rainy in spots. It wasn't just normal rain either freezing rain plus some snow flurries but neither produced but it dictated if i filmed outside or from my car.  I only ended up filming on video in my car at Elmwood as prior to it arriving it  was raining plus it seemed the temp dropped so I was freezing. The joys of a car without heat you rely on a jacket and body fat to keep you warm and I certainly have enough body fat. Ha.  I did manage to knock off a few locations off my bucket list such as Elmwood, Edwards and off Kickapoo Creek road. I've filmed in Yates City before so catching it there wasn't concerned about but I did go to Douglas to take pictures as I never railfanned there or paid that little town any mind. Here are some photographs and  wha
Read more