Nostalgia & History > Tales Of The "Mud Line"

Back in 1991, one of my father's coworkers lived next door to the retired chief dispatcher of the Illinois Central's St. Louis Division. Dr. Brandon passed this on to my father, who in turn passed it on to me as I remember. I approached Mr. Joseph, who at age 90 agreed to sit down with a 19 year old kid with a tape recorder.

R.C. Joseph needed to have his parents sign a release allowing him to take a job on the I.C. as an operator in 1919. He worked the extra board and also worked regular jobs at a number of small stations in southern Illinois, including such hamlets as Hallidayboro on the mainline and McClure on the "Mud Line" parallel to the Missouri Pacific in the Mississippi River Valley. In the 1940s, he came to the dispatcher's office in Carbondale, where he would retire as Chief on December 31, 1968, after 50 years with the railroad. He passed away in 1994.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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Much of the cutoff from Mathews Junction to Sand Ridge can still be traced today on Google Maps, in no small part because much of it was paved and became a road after the rails were removed. Some of the roadbed is now submerged in Kincaid Lake, but a large part of the paved portion is called Mudline Road. The rest is surprisingly easy to follow for a line that was abandoned a good 70 plus years ago.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions