Nostalgia & History > Bush, Illinois 1916

Guy at work gave me this picture that he found while cleaning out his grandfathers place. Knew nothing about it.

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Bush, IL is in the southern part of the state NE of Carbondale, like the picture says the Missouri Pacific ran through town. I did find this article http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/IL-HISTORY/2006-10/1162152151

Just mainly a passing siding now.

A very interesting historical image. Thanks for sharing it.

Bush was the location of a key coal-gathering yard on one of Missouri Pacific's three main Southern Illinois coal branches. Like oddly angled rungs on a ladder, these three lines branched off the Chester Sub, the mainline down the Mississippi River valley from East St. Louis, each angling northeastward into the large coalfields of the region.

At the north end was the Sparta Sub, diverging at Gage Jct. north of Chester; in the middle the Pinckneyville Sub, diverging just south of Chester; and at the south end what would be known in later, post-C&EI-merger days as the Chicago Sub (today the UP Mt. Vernon Sub), diverging at Gorham.

Bush (known on the MP for many years as Bush-Hurst, for the two immediately adjacent villages near the yard) was on the southernmost of the three "rungs" (today's UP Mt. Vernon Sub), about nine miles northeast of Carbondale, Ill.

I had long known that there was an important coal traffic yard there. But I had never come across the fact that it was a hump yard. Very interesting.

Bush-Hurst has a place in MP history. Here is where MoPac steam came to an active end. On April 6, 1955, pulled by MP #15, a 1905-built 2-8-0, a funeral train of dead steam locomotives was towed to MP's big yard at Dupo, Ill. near St. Louis, where they all went onto the dead line before being scrapped.

Here's a link to a nice article on the event from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Two images in the band of thumbnails above the article's marvelous main image, depicting operations at St. Louis Union Station, show the departure of the funeral train from Bush-Hurst.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/look-back/a-look-back-st-louis-railroad-chugs-its-last-steam/article_967432fe-8f75-5c56-8ca7-c860355903dc.html

MC
Columbia, Missouri



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/14 18:57 by ironmtn.

Looks like it was made as an ad for the various unions. Do you suppose that "8 hr day for 10 hrs pay" was a slogan of what they wanted, or was what they were actually getting?

Also, there is a pipe coming down from the top of the boiler and running forward on the running board,a nd seems to just have an open end at the front of the engine. What is this?

lwilton Wrote:
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> Looks like it was made as an ad for the various
> unions. Do you suppose that "8 hr day for 10 hrs
> pay" was a slogan of what they wanted, or was what
> they were actually getting?
>
> Also, there is a pipe coming down from the top of
> the boiler and running forward on the running
> board,a nd seems to just have an open end at the
> front of the engine. What is this?

That is what they got by order of the United States Government. It amounted to a 25% increase in the hourly rate of pay. So, OK, the railroads had this colossal cost increase due to an edict of the government.

By 1916 the Federal Government had granted itself authority over maximum rail rates. (They gave themselves control of minimum rail rates in 1920.) The Feds used the power they had in 1916 to prohibit the railroads from raising their rates to cover the increased labor cost.

Only fools would think that could work out. But we're talking about the government here, and they, fools that they were, just told the railroads to eat it. That's when the rail mileage in the US began its decline. Few people would invest in an industry treated foolishly and punitively by our national government.

It didn't change until 1981.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/14 12:50 by Rabbiteer.

Very, very good name for a town. Didn't know there was a town named after me. upkpfan