Nostalgia & History > Online industries on Chessie System/CSX New Rock sub

I would guess that the biggest online industry on the CSX New Rock sub is probably the silica sand from the Ottawa, Illinois area.

Growing up on the line in the '80s, it seemed like there was more of a diversity of online industry.  I recall there being old boxcars used for grain.  Were there any online industries shipping out grain on the line between Blue Island and Henry in the '80s?  Or was this traffic handed off from the old Iowa Railroad?

 Also, there were a fair amount of tank cars that would leak out sulfur.  You could collect solid yellow blobs of the stuff at trackside.  What online industry in particular in the area were these from?  

What were some of the other big shippers on the line other than sand in the '80s?  







 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/15 13:53 by aaronhanson.

Chemicals are also big business on the New Rock Sub, especially between Rockdale and Morris.  All in all, it's a very profitable piece of railroad for CSX.

WrongMain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chemicals are also big business on the New Rock
> Sub, especially between Rockdale and Morris.  All
> in all, it's a very profitable piece of railroad
> for CSX

For sure.  Any online grain shippers in the 80s?  What industry used tanks of molten sulphur which sometimes spilled trace amounts of that cargo on the tracks?  

Almost all the grain traffic I can recall on the New Rock was inbound for barge loading.

What was then Garvey Grain (not sure what it's called now) runs a large land-to-barge terminal off of River Road between Ottawa and Marseilles. I recall seeing quite a few boxcars (realtively speaking, still heavily outnumbered by covered hoppers) going in there.

Conti-Carriers in Seneca (on the site of the old Chicago Bridge & Iron shipyard that built LSTs in WWII) also handled inbound grain and potash for barge loading. In the early 80s there were at least a couple of unit trains of potash from Saskatchewan that were received off the Soo Line for Seneca.

There would be very little opportunity for outbound grain traffic given the proximity of the Illinois River and all the barge loadouts. The Rock used to bring Iowa grain into the Port Of Chicago (off of the former Pullman Railroad down by Hegewisch) but changing markets doomed export shipping from Chicago via the Great Lakes.

I have track maps of the former Rock Island between Morris and Bureau with industries indentified (as of 1977) I can post here if that would help.

NZ

NebraskaZephyr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I have track maps of the former Rock Island
> between Morris and Bureau with industries
> indentified (as of 1977) I can post here if that
> would help.
>
> NZ





Yes!  Please do.  Thank you, as that would be most appreciated.  I especially wonder if track maps that late would still show the spur from the main to the Federal Paper Board plant at Morris, where the tracks crossed the Illinois and Michigan Canal and would have serviced industry much further west along the canal in the past, such as a tool manufacturer and Gebhard Beer brewery.  I believe that particular spur was removed by the early 70s, but I don't know for sure.  

I also looked on Google earth and Bing maps eagle eye view recently.  It seems like new tracks have been built to service industries on that section within the past 20 years.  

Okay, Aaron, here ya go, from West to East:
1. Bureau.
2. DePue. To my knowledge nothing but the Main Track (old westbound) remains in place today.
3. LaSalle-Peru



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/15 09:40 by NebraskaZephyr.

---

---

---

4. Utica. The trackage here has been greatly revised by CSX in the past year.
5. Ottawa (West Yard)
6. Ottawa -- Ottawa Silica and Libbey-Owens-Ford industrial tracks (joint with BN). 

---

---

---

7. Marseilles (West). Garvey Grain doesn't show on here, it's west of Borg-Warner (Marbon) about MP 82.
8. Marseilles (East). I think the place you were wondering about with the sulphur cars is National Phosphate on the far right.

Only two this post so I don't break up Seneca. One more set of three coming.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/15 17:24 by NebraskaZephyr.

---

---

Last set....

9. Seneca
10. Seneca -- former Big Four (Kankakee & Seneca) track across the Illinois River and up to DuPont (amonium nitrate plant, later known as Explosive Technologies Inc.). At one time this track continued on another couple of miles southeast to an elevator at a place called Langham.
11. Morris proper. Think the track you're looking for is on the extreme right of the diagram.

Sorry the booklet these were in stops here, don't have the joint RI-EJ&E industrial track at East Morris or Minooka or Rockdale.

Anyway, hope some of this is helpful.

NZ

---

---

---

NZ, this was clearly above and beyond and I can't thank you enough for your effort. Thank you for sharing and some of those track configurations are definitely long gone these days. Thanks for helping to clear up where those boxcars being used as grain cars were being used. It was an interesting practice and some of those cars were clearly ancient. Some of them included the old Rock Island 100 year anniversary boxcars and the Route of the Rockets cars, as well. By that time I think they had cnw reporting marks.

Posted from Android