CN Rail is considering closing its carshops in Centralia, Illinois, a spokeswoman said last week.

She said the shops have "in the ballpark" of 85 employees.

Karen Phillips, vice president of U.S. public and government affairs for CN/IC, said, "We take a look periodically at our various areas and at better ways to increase our services and reduce costs. Centralia is the focus of one of those studies, but nothing has been decided."

There are reports that CN may be considering transferring the local operations to a facility in Memphis, Tenn., but Phillips said she could not confirm that.

There also were indications that the CN yards in Centralia might be targeted for closure. Phillips said the exact scope of the closing of the Centralia operation, if it takes place, remains to be determined.

She said union officials have been notified that the railroad is reviewing the status of the Centralia facility.

"We should know something by the end of this month or early in May," Phillips said. "We are taking a look at the whole facility, but it could get narrower [the scope of the possible closing] or there could be no decision made to close it at all. Nothing has been decided."

Although the railroad facility's future remains in question, there was one unrelated announcement made Monday that another Centralia business is closing its doors and moving.

A spokesman for Fastenal, an industrial construction supplier which has had a local office at 301 Swan Ave. in Industrial Park No. 1 since 2002, said Monday that the Centralia operations are moving to 9364 E. Illinois Route 15 in Mt. Vernon next week.

He said the three local employees will be retained and will work out of the Mt. Vernon office.

"We moved here because of a couple of customers and they were phased out, so we lost a lot of business, and we're going to go back to Mt. Vernon," the spokesman said.

If the railroad car repair shops and yards close, it will be another blow to a local economy already trying to cope with a series of manufacturing plant closures.

The carshops and the old roundhouse there were symbols of Centralia's railroading heyday. The offices and the machine, blacksmith and boiler departments which the railroad operated at its Wamac yards at one time had 1,200 people on their payroll.

The roundhouse was razed in 1997. It had been vacant for years, and the railroad phased out most of the work at the nearby carshops starting in the 1970s, although limited operations have remained.

In many respects, Centralia owes its existence - and even its name - to the development of the once-booming Illinois Central Railroad carshops.

The railroad and the Southern Illinois coal industry, as well as area oil development and the fruit-growing industry, fueled the Centralia area's economy in the early decades of the 20th century. The coal and oil industries have declined sharply over the years.

Sentinel archives indicate that Centralia's original car shops were completed in 1856. By 1866 the shops employed 330 and they were destined to grow to several times that number, becoming one of the biggest employers in the area.

According to the Aug. 24, 1953, Centralia centennial edition of the Sentinel, the Illinois Central Railroad employed 1,146 workers in Centralia that year, 680 in the shops and about 466 in train, track, office and other duties. It was estimated that "one out of every four persons in greater Centralia is directly dependent upon the Illinois Central for his or her livelihood."