Nostalgia & History > Southbound Illinois Central splits Carbondale circa 1956

I just added this negative to my library, and felt obliged to pass it along.  This comes from a 4x6 negative, and was listed as location and date unknown.  Well, the latter is known and the former can be guessed.

First, the where.

This photo shows rebuilt Illinois Central Mikado #2102 southbound at Carbondale, Illinois.  To the left of the Mike is 0-8-0 #3553, working a downtown switch job.  The storefront in the background is still there on Oak Street today.  To the far left, a MoPac boxcar is spotted along the loading dock at the freight house, while the St. Louis Division office stands to the right.  To the right of the train is a heavyweight passenger car, and further north appears to be the rear end of an E-Unit on the same track.  The photographer is standing at Main Street.

Now, the when.

Looking at the foliage, this appears to be a late spring through summer shot.  The E-Unit running around suggests that the St. Louis connecting passenger assignements have been turned over to diesels, which were dieselized in March of '55.  The vehicle in parked on Oak Street is a '55 Ford, and photos from mid '57 show #3553 still running.  We known that #3553 and #2102 were last assigned to Carbondale, and both locomotives languished there near the roundhouse by late '58 before being hauled off to scrap.  The fact that a Mike is still running on the mainline would indicate that the photo predates diesels bumping Mountains off of mainline assignments up north, as by mid '58 locals were being handled by 2500 and 2600 class mountains and 2700 class Centrals (2-10-2 to you non-I.C. folks).  All this suggests the photo was taken somewhere between the summer of '55 through the summer of '57.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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Thanks for the great photo and narration.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

SB CN at roughly the same location a few weeks ago.

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Nice shot Mary.  I used to love Centralia.

Note in Chris' shot two features visible in the older photo: one is the brick portion of the facade on the east side of the store building, while the other is the concrete walkway (much worse for wear) that used to be between the tracks and the division office.  The division office was destroyed by an arson fire in 1986, and a lot of history went up with it.  Its site is now a parking lot.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

Nice bit of detective work Mary.