Middle Grove- Rapatee Coal mine

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.  Then end of the rail shipment in this mine  lead to the C&NW wanting to abandon it in the late 1980's but  due to potential to serve a local dump around Fairview it was Rail banked for many years.  In 1995 C&NW merged into Union Pacific.  In 2008 the UP put the line up for abandonment.  The  remaining tracks from west of Peoria back to Farmington and Middle Grove was torn out in 2010.

 The pictures I took are of the area of some of the mine as well as the right of way trains used to travel to the mine they served.  I also included the 2010  pictures of the aftermath of rail removal in Farmington which trains passed to get to Middle Grove.  














Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 14, 2020 at 12:49 AM

    In the first three pictures you are looking at the old haul road used by the heavy mining trucks. The rail line was on the other side of the state highway that is seen in the pictures. Middle Grove is the small town that sat on the south side of the highway here. The rail line passed through Middle Grove & continued on about another 3/4 of a mile to the coal processing plant we the trains were loaded. By the time these pictures were taken the plant had been torn down & the ground cleaned up. The buildings shown in the later pictures were the Central Repair shop & Midland Coal's main office. Peabody Coal sold these mines to ASARCO a copper mining company who started Midland Coal Company. When ASARCO later decided to sell this coal mine they sold it to several employees that operated it under the Midstates Coal name.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Traingirl36February 27, 2021 at 10:20 PM

      Ty for the response its been ages since ive been up here

      Delete
  2. UnknownJuly 21, 2021 at 6:45 PM

    Is the mine open to the public

    ReplyDelete

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