Eastern Railroad Discussion > Why did NS abandon the EX Wabash/N&W Chicago Decatur Route?

Good Morning everyone. I was wondering why NS got rid of the old Wabash/N&W route from Decatur to Chicago south of Manhattan. NS could have built a connection with the Kanakee Belt at Reddick,IL so that way trains 18K And 19K along with Coal from Southern IL, to Wheatfield, IN could have a more convenient routing. I wonder why NS got rid of this Route?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/17 08:35 by railfaneric.

There are a wealth of TO discussions about the TPW and the Kankakee Belt in the context of big company politics.

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It should be noted that the line is not completely abandoned. It is still active from Gibson City to Bement as part of the NS Bloomington Subdivision (at Gibson City NS turns and follows the ex NKP line to Peoria). Also, the Bloomer line (Alliance Grain), runs on the old Wabash I believe all the way north to Kempton.

I thought that NS had trackage rights on CN from Gibson City into Chicago. If this is the case that would diminish the value of the old Wabash line.

kbmiflyer Wrote:
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> It should be noted that the line is not completely
> abandoned. It is still active from Gibson City to
> Bement as part of the NS Bloomington Subdivision
> (at Gibson City NS turns and follows the ex NKP
> line to Peoria). Also, the Bloomer line (Alliance
> Grain), runs on the old Wabash I believe all the
> way north to Kempton.
>
> I thought that NS had trackage rights on CN from
> Gibson City into Chicago. If this is the case
> that would diminish the value of the old Wabash
> line.

That's correct. In addition, the line still exists from Manhattan, IL north into Chicago, used by Metra's Southwest Service and NS, who dispatches the line. Landers Yard is stretched out alongside it on Chicago's south side.

IIRC NS "replaced" this line with the trackage rights over the IC, making it redundant.

To what extent, however, does NS exercise those rights anymore? I caught an NS train on the IC in Gibson City in 1999....

toledopatch Wrote:
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> IIRC NS "replaced" this line with the trackage
> rights over the IC, making it redundant.

Wasn't a whole lot of traffic on the line at the time the trackage rights were negotiated. There were only a couple of pairs of scheduled manifest trains on the line if I recall and they didn't always run.

Between Gibson City and Manhattan, the ex-Wabash had NO significant industrial customers, only a handful of country grain elevators, none of which were as large as the larger, consolidated facilities now served by the Bloomer Line.

The ex-Wabash also terminated at Landers Yard on the southwest side of Chicago, which is not as convenient to NS's lines east out of Chicago as the ex-NKP Calumet Yard (and now the ex-CR Colehour Yard). Trackage rights over the IC (now CN) from Gibson City to Chicago allowed NS trains to make a more direct approach to both Calumet and Colehour via 95th St. and Pullman Jct.

Evidently the CN trackage rights must be an acceptable solution to maintaining a hundred miles of railroad with no customers, as when NS took over its portion of Conrail it had the opportunity to reestablish its own Chicago-Decatur route by reactivating CR's ex-NYC "Egyptian" line from Danville, IL north to Schneider, IN, where the remainder of the Kankakee Belt joins to head north into Colehour. Going on 18 years later and not a shovel has turned on that project, so draw whatever conclusions you may.

NZ

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> IIRC NS "replaced" this line with the trackage
> rights over the IC, making it redundant.
>
> To what extent, however, does NS exercise those
> rights anymore? I caught an NS train on the IC in
> Gibson City in 1999....

I believe there's one train a day in each direction.