Nostalgia & History > CB&Q Passenger route

I recently read a magazine article about a man that took a passenger train from Galesburg to Savanna thru Clinton. I don't know how this could have been done. Does anyone know the route they would have taken? How would the Q have gotten from Clinton to Savanna? TIA.

It must have been a detour. A CB&Q, now BNSF, line diverged from Barstow, IL and goes over the river to the Quad Cities and then runs north
on the old Dri Line (Davenport Rock Island and Northwestern) to Clinton. The Q line dead ends at Clinton. To reach Savanna
from Clinton, the train had to run on the Milwaukee.
The BNSF still has a local based at Clinton and runs Clinton to Barstow and return.

Hope this helps.

Bob Helling
PRose



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/13 05:54 by PRose.

PRose Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It must have been a detour. A CB&Q, now BNSF,
> line diverged from Barstow, IL and goes over the
> river to the Quad Cities and then runs north
> on the old Dri Line (Davenport Rock Island and
> Northwestern) to Clinton. The Q line dead ends at
> Clinton. To reach Savanna
> from Clinton, the train had to run on the
> Milwaukee.
> The BNSF still has a local based at Clinton and
> runs Clinton to Barstow and return.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Bob Helling
> PRose

I agree with this post, but want to add the following.
While there may have been a detour involved, I'm thinking
it's possible the Q had rights over the Milwaukee from
Clinton to Savanna. The connector at the diamonds would
be railroad west of the Q's Savanna Yard, and railroad
east of the depot. A train could pull across the diamonds,
then back through the connector to the depot.

Understand this is speculation on my part. I have no hard
evidence of this and no way to get any.


Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Actually, the "Q" ran trains 47-48 from Galesburg to Savanna via the DRI&NW (DRI Line). The route from Galesburg would have been north on the Peavine to Barstow, then west through East Moline, Moline and Rock Island. Continuing on DRI&NW track (1/2 "Q" ownership), the trains crossed the Mississippi on the Cresent Bridge to Davenport, and continued on the west side of the river by way of Bettendorf, LeClaire, Princeton and Camanche to Clinton. The "Q" had rights to use the C&NW bridge at Clinton to cross back over the Mississippi to the their own tracks at Fulton, and continue north by way of Thompson to Savanna. There are timetables documenting this routing in the Burlington Bulletin No 49 from the "Q" Historical Society with an excellent sidebar by Jerry Lundeen describing the populatity of these trains with John Deere employees. Bulletin #49 and Linroth's book "History of the CB&Q Illinois Pea Vine" are pretty much indispensible for folks with an interest in the Burlington in the Quad City area.

THX I dont remember seeing a place where the Q could get off the CNW and onto their tracks at Fulton, but I was a young lad then LOL. The article was in Trains of the 1950's and it was by Robert Malinoski. He said it was train #47 from Galesburg to Savanna.It was a slow train 5hrs to go 93 miles.

Trainman44 is right, of course, it wasn't at Fulton per se, but at a timetable location known as East Clinton, just south of Fulton. This is where the original "Q" line from Denrock through Garden Plain crossed the C&NW main just off the east end of the C&NW bridge. A map in Linroth's book shows a connection in the NW quad of the crossing.
A 1950 timetable, reflecting operations after the "Q" relocated the line from Fenton to Ebner to the east of Fulton, shows No. 48 departing Ebner at 5:38AM, then taking the old main line to depart Fulton at 5:49AM, East Clinton at 5:53AM and Clinton at 6:00AM.