Howdy from Havana ,Illinois.

This is another branch i have plans to go exploring more into for right of way locations that might be able to still be seen after nearly 40 years since the tracks have been abandoned and pulled.  I have photographed the location in Vermont where it split off from the main where it  headed south towards Rushville.  It was an odd little branch since it went to Rushville and stopped going no futher than that ( atleast to my knowledge).  I will relay information I have seen and do know but as to what all this branched served in the years it operated I haven't really the foggiest idea. The first train into Rushville, Illinois was on the Peoria & Hannibal Railroad on July 4, 1869. When the CB&Q took over the railroad it put an end to further expansion and  the line remained a stub road into Rushville.  The last train into Rushville ran on the evening of November 3, 1980.  The depot was sold and torn out well before that back in 1970. The tracks to...

Not too far from Beardstown to the northwest lies two Schuyler County towns that  lay where CB&Q once ran trains but the line was abandoned as CB&Q built another line to the west that went to Beardstown to avoid the hill the trains had issues with at Bader, Illinois.  The line was abandoned by the 1960's.  The line  went  to Vermont then onto Astoria then down to Beardstown. The line at Astoria originally went into the south side of Astoria  itself but the people living around weren't happy with the noise and ran it out of town pretty much so the CB&Q set up track just to the south of town redirecting the mainline at the time there.  This would not be the lines only problem it seems.  Apparently trains had issues going uphill at a hill at Bader so eventually the line was redirected to the new line to the west and Astoria down to  the old line to  Frederick was abandoned. The town of Bader was created with the coming of ...

Macomb, Industry & Littleton Railway was a small railroad in western Illinois that only lasted about thirty years and only ran from Macomb south to Littleton.   I have taken pictures of what were the area the tracks ran and a remainder former section that still has tracks on the property which look like they haven't been used in ages.  As to how old the tracks are whom knows for all I know the original tracks that would have ran here could have been removed and replaced to serve the facility by the CB&Q (now BNSF).  The line did reroute to this area to by pass areas people who owned land filed lawsuits to run them off which worked.  The right of way is also seen in google earth shots in spots to where other maps from 1920, ect show where the line was which confirm the tracks i have photographed did come by here but i have no idea how old the tracks are to know if it's original or replaced.  Anyways  the railroaded started out as the Macomb & Wes...

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...

East and south east of the small town of Cuba, Illinois in central Fulton County today is now a bunch of farms and old strip mine lates but over forty years ago it was a good sized coal mine that had access to two railroad companies serving them one from the south the other from the north. By the few pictures I have seen of it the mine covered quite a few miles and multiple sections of Putman township.  It wasn't just another small coal mine that came and went but was one of the biggest if not the biggest in Fulton County.  The mine itself in this area operated for many decades from 1923 until 1971.   When the No. 9 mine opened in 1923, a Curtis Owens was the first man employed to start construction on the railroad into the mine or so I read.  He and five other men using horses and scrappers cleared timber to lay this track which would head from the CB&Q line branched up north on what would be  later Route 97 between Lewist...

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, 2...

The Saint David , Illinois area has a long history of coal mines over a hundred and some years.  Coal mines popped up, prospered for either a short period time but the luckier ones lasted a few decades.  When I say luckier mines the ones who were loaded with coal.  The smaller mines worked until they ran out or the mines became to unsafe afterwards they were abandoned.  This county has alot of coal mines some of which i'll cover in my blog in the future.  So we'll start this off covering some of the history of the Saint David Coal mine aka Big Creek Coal Mine. The St. David Coal Mine was located north of the town of Saint David in section 16 of the township.  It was north of the town and just north of My Aunt Edna's house which I once played there  quite a few times as a kid unaware of the history just feet away. I'll post a picture later the trees in the background was where the mines were beyond that nearby.  There was a CB&Q spur that cam...

North of Canton off 4th avenue and  just south of Cypress Road lies a hill that was part of an old coal mine that prospered for a number or years.  The  property it was on belonged to Thomas Simmons who created The Simmons Coal Company and the Simmons Coal mine.  This mine started building around 1906 and from 1908 until 1926 the mine prospered employing some people. I have wondered about this hill which by the way is right along the old CB&Q ROW.  The railroad tracks were removed in 2017 but it appears the CB&Q shipped for them.  Sadly in September 1916  a  39 year old man was killed here.  He was a mule driver for the mine and got crushed by a car of coal.  Thomas Simmons the creator of this mine died 4 years after it closed  on January 1st,  1930.  The 1906 annual report which my source comes from Hinton-gen.com website dedicated to the coal mining in this area shows Simmons Coal Company has...