Spoon River Drive FCNG museum & a BNSF train

October 8th, 2016 was a good day the sun was shinning and I got the opportunity  to go on the Spoon River Drive a little bit and had a day out with  mom.  One of the first things I did after picking up my mom in Lewistown is stopped by at the Fulton County Narrow Gaugue museum. There I met  a friend from Facebook who was running it or something.  We  talked about the railroad, I looked around and seen their model train display.  I also toured the caboose and felt weird as hell climbing in it considering I'm short as hell.  I might as well  be a dwarf standing next to the caboose. Haha.  Yeah sorry being weird.  I have a weird sense of humor don't mind me. The museum had old lanterns, an oil can, different types of rails ( standard, mine rail and narrow gauge rail) as well as alot of pictures.  After that drove over to Camp Ellis and looked around.  It's a historical site yet no one visits yet people are all too happy to crowd around Bernadotte buying random crap ignoring the historical part of this county.  Yeah, I'm not a vendor type of person when i go on the Spoon River Drive if you readers are to each their own. Again being weird don't mind me. :)
The friend at the Narrow Gauge museum told me about a BNSF coal train parked outside Ipava and told me how to get to a back road to photograph the locomotives which I did.  This train would leave later that evening which i was tipped off by  that friend so went and caught it.  The engineer even  did a shave and the hair cut on the horn in Saint David. The day went pretty good and it was sunny thankfully.  I'll probably revisit next year the museum and probably the blacksmith museum if it's open on the drive which it should be.  There's a coal mine museum in Cuba want to go too but i had mom with me and it would just bore her so didn't go.  It's no big deal.  I'll probably be doing a blog about the Spoon River Drive and it's history one of these days as well as more on some area Mines and debating some about old cemeteries and ghost towns in this county . What can I say I enjoy my Fulton County history despite the fact this area is boring as hell most of the time.  I kid I kid.  It's true though!  :D


















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

Galesburg & Great Eastern Railroad of Knox County, Illinois.

Image
One of the little railroad's in the area I have an interest in was up in Knox County that ran from Wataga east to Victoria then east before heading north.  It served mainly coal mines but probably farmers as well.  Victoria had a depot here which still stands  The right of way and grade can probably still be seen from the ground if you know where to look.  I have yet to go up there and look but can see it in many spots from google earth.  One of these days plan on making another trip to look around some of these back roads and the country side for traces of the right of way as well as the areas where the coal mines once were.  This railroad had a sixty year history which  despite having financial problems up the rear still managed to last a little long than the Narrow Gauge (later CB&Q) line down in Fulton County out lasting that one by a decade.  The railroad's start was as the Galesburg, Etherly and Eastern Railroad in 1894 which was built from Wataga east to a mining t
Read more