Nostalgia & History > Southern Illinois over thirty years ago

A little variety in days gone by...

#1. Three C30-7s and a U30C lead a southbound (timetable westbound as its moving away from Chicago) coal train about five miles south of Centralia, Illinois. This is the former CB&Q line into the southern Illinois coal fields. Ironically it remains a coal line to this day, but traffic has switched from outbound loads mined locally to inbound loads from the Powder River Basin. The date was December 30, 1981.

#2. Southern Railway Geeps lead a train of empties to a mine near Albers, Illinois, on the line from Louisville to St. Louis. A GP35 leads a GP30 and a GP38 on March 13, 1982.

#3. Some of the last locomotives delivered in Jenks Blue arrive in Salem, Illinois, as a trio of GP50s lead a southbound intermodal train on February 13, 1983.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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#4. Chessie System's colors are underrated in my humble opinion. Here is a pair of Geeps pulling into the MoPac yard at Salem, Illinois, on October 5, 1983. Chessie and successor CSX once did a fair amount of interchange at Salem. Today, the west end of the B&O to St. Louis is out of service, with rails pulled at both ends and several diamonds removed.

5. Illinois Central GP10 #8051 leads a northbound local at Wamac, just south of Centralia, Illinois, on the morning of January 7, 1984. I grew up with the Paducah Geeps. Too bad I was too young to do much with them until they had started to disappear.

6. Phase II and Phase III painted F40ph's at Centralia, Illinois, on May 19, 1984. The northbound City of New Orleans has just arrived, while the light engine waits to pick up a coach to head west over Norfolk Southern to St. Louis with the River Cities. The work of splitting the trains would later be moved to Carbondale when Amtrak took over its own operating crews and Carbondale became a crew base.

All six photos were taken by George Redmond of Centralia.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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Like all your photos, most especially #3.
ALLEN

Great variety of railroads including five fallen flags. Number two with the sun glinting on the locomotives is my favorite.
Bob

Neat shots, I've been curious about some of those areas and this is helpful to see.