The history of Chicago and eastern Illinois was special to those who observed the railroad firsthand.
C&EI’s Florida varnish “compared favorably” to the Santa Fe star among Chicago’s seven Dearborn station roads, but the unnamed No. 1 toward Evansville was a lesser light. With the ATSF stock as a backdrop, the premises depart in April 1957 with an NC&StL baggage car behind the FP7-E7 duo. dan papa collection
In the pantheon of great railroad names, “Chicago” was often the magic word. Think of all the carriers with Chicago on their letterhead, railroads with thousands of miles on their system maps, railroads whose names imply great continental distances: Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and the Pacific. Chicago and Northwest. Or railroads that, at some point in their history, set gold standards of one kind or another: Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, with their incomparable Zephyrs. Chicago South Shore and South Bend and Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee, with their thundering high-speed interurbans.
And then there’s the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, a railroad with a thoroughly practical and prosaic name. C&EI pretty much went where he said: from Chicago south through the cornfields along the Illinois-Indiana state line. His route map resembled a trident, dividing at Woodland Junction, 64 miles south of Chicago, into two main lines serving St. Louis to the southwest and Evansville, Indiana, to the south, with a secondary main line at St. Louis. line that ran directly south to the southernmost “Egypt” region of Illinois. C&EI was headquartered in Chicago; its center of operations was Danville, 123 miles to the south.
C&EI were often described as respectable but unremarkable. For most of the 20th century, its revenue placed it in the middle of the AAR’s list of Class I railroads. His route mileage in 1940 was a modest 925. He was a minor player at Chicago’s Dearborn station, even more so at the St. Louis Union station. In the steam era, C&EI operated a conventional fleet of locomotives dominated by 2-8-2s and 4-6-2s; never had an engine with a four wheel tow truck. C&EI dieselized after the Second World War with mostly commercially available EMD F units, Geeps and switchers, although three BL2s and four Alco RS1s spiced up the mix. The overall complexion of the C&EI caused my friend, George H. Drury, to write that the C&EI was “mediocre.”
George meant no harm. His essay, “Unremarked, Unremarkable,” published in Trains in July 1983, explained that mediocre meant “neither extraordinarily good nor extraordinarily bad.” (This is coming from a guy whose favorite railroad is the Boston & Maine!) In his book Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad in Color (Morning Sun Books, 2001), Ed DeRouin called the railroad “Plain Vanilla.”
The strongholds of C&EI’s first road diesel vehicle list were 33 F units and 30 GP7s, two of which were on a southbound transfer at Chicago on June 25, 1961, as seen from the Monon Thoroughbred. Photo by J. David Ingles
A railway from my youth.
I’ve decided that George and Ed were wrong. Take it from someone who, as a 9-year-old, spent many happy summer hours walking the gleaming C&EI double-track mainline, which ran imperiously through the sleepy farming town of Alvin, Illinois, home of my Aunt Bessie and my uncle. John.
My great-aunt, Bessie Alison, was a sweet but sturdy woman who cooked on a charcoal stove, drew water from a hand pump on the front porch, and once worked as a C&EI caretaker at the Alvin Depot, a few hundred yards away. meters from his home at the junction of the Rantoul & Eastern branch of the Illinois Central (abandoned in the 1930s). Her husband, John Alison, was also a C&EI retiree, a small, wiry man with years of backbreaking work as a section man under his belt. (Full disclosure: My father’s entire side of the family was deeply rooted in the history of Chicago and eastern Illinois. My great-grandfather, Peter Keefe, was a leverage man, and his son, my grandfather Edgar Keefe, was a operator who retired around 1951, ending up in the train dispatch office in Danville.)
Our family trips from Chicago and later southern Michigan to Alvin in the late 1950s and early 1960s were like visits at the turn of the century. Although Aunt Bessie’s hospitality was generous, she did not expect the relatively primitive conditions, especially the back outhouse. However, any trip to Alvin was exciting thanks to C&EI’s spectacular diversions.
The tracks ran north and south through town and crossed West Railroad Street, a half block west of the house. I don’t know how busy C&EI was in those days, but in my memory long summer afternoons were frequently interrupted by the distant sound of air horns, at which point I would stop what I was doing, get rid of my brother and my sister, and runs down the street in time to see a blur of blue and orange taxi units and silver passenger cars roaring through the city. The sight and sound were fascinating.
Yes, the little C&EIs had the power to captivate. And not just for a 9 year old. In fact, as I learned over the years, the railroad could claim several distinctions that, for me at least, helped it transcend the mediocre.
Take those passenger trains. While it is true, C&EI shared the glory of its most prestigious veneer with many partners: Louisville & Nashville; Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis; Atlanta, Birmingham and coast; Atlantic Coast Line; and the east coast of Florida: C&EI met them in Chicago, providing the main Windy City train service in Florida. Those famous C&EI trains included the Dixie Flagler, Dixie Flyer and Dixie Limited, as well as L&N’s Georgian and Humming Bird, sleek streamlined trains to exotic southern destinations, trains that compared favorably to Santa Fe’s more famous Chiefs. on other roads in Dearborn.
The history of Chicago and eastern Illinois also had worthy local trains, particularly the streamlined postwar Meadowlark and Whippoorwill. Built by Pullman-Standard and introduced in 1946, the Meadowlark offered daily service between Chicago and Cypress, 345 miles to the south, while the Whippoorwill linked Chicago to Evansville. Although both trains debuted amid typical fanfare, the Whippoorwill was demoted to an Evansville local in 1950, and the Meadowlark lasted only until 1962, by then equipped with the railroad’s only Budd RDC-1.
For a time, C&EI faced three competitors on the tough Chicago-St. Luis Market. By the 1930s, this corridor was already well served by Alton, Illinois Central, and Wabash. C&EI entered the fray with the Zipper, which covered 290 miles in 5 hours, an average of 58 mph. The Zipper offered a 5 pm departure from Chicago and an 8:50 am train from St. Louis (“first out, first in,” the railroad said of the morning train). But the performance only allowed C&EI to boast the “fastest standard weight train” in the racer, as IC bested it by 5 minutes with its new “diesel-electric articulated aerodynamic train”, the Green Diamond. Shortly after the war, C&EI left the St. Louis market.
A fixture in the history of Chicago and eastern Illinois, Oaklawn Shops was in Danville, Illinois, as shown in this photograph circa 1948. The shops survived a major fire in November 1937, being completely converted for repair freight cars in 1950 and closed in 1969. Collection of Jay Williams
Modest power, great store
C&EI’s modest fleet of engines had an immodest home: Oaklawn Shops, on the east end of Danville. Built in stages in 1903 and 1907, Oaklawn featured a 628-foot-long assembly and machine shop, with a coach shop, a boiler shop, and a 56-stall roundhouse, a facility almost as extensive as any in Roanoke or Altoona. The shop staff was also capable of performing more than just routine maintenance. In 1940, they completely rationalized and modernized the 29-year-old Baldwin USRA Pacific No. 1008 for service on the Dixie Flagler, introducing it as a new streamlined Chicago-Miami coach. The old K-2 Pacific received new Scullin disc drive wheels, a cast steel drop coupler pilot, and a sleek black and silver casing.
C&EI wasn’t your typical Midwest freight carrier, either. It certainly transported its share of agricultural products and was involved in the rapid delivery of goods to and from Chicago and its connections. But C&EI had a unique history with another commodity: bituminous coal. After 1911 it absorbed several smaller carriers in southern Illinois and Indiana to serve coal mines. Although competition from lower-priced Appalachian coal severely reduced C&EI tonnage in the 1930s, traffic increased again in the mid-1950s to meet demand for new power plants in Danville; Terre Haute, Indiana; and along the Ohio River.
Coal also fueled a curious but significant footnote to the history of Chicago and eastern Illinois: Elgin, Joliet & Eastern’s use of 100 miles of C&EI rights-of-way to exploit coal fields. The agreement dates back to 1893, when EJ&E, owned by US Steel, began operating three or more coal trains a day from its own small terminal along the C&EI main line at Rossville Junction, Illinois, 105 miles from Chicago. From Rossville, EJ&E served several USS-owned mines near Westville, Illinois, and Jackson, Indiana. The Depression hit EJ&E’s coal business hard, and despite a boom during World War II, “the J” ended the agreement in 1947 as it stood. dieselization.
Unfortunately, the history of Chicago and eastern Illinois was, shall we say, “altered” and, as a business entity, could no longer remain independent. After the C&EI Railroad emerged from the 1912 bankruptcy caused by Frisco in 1920, the new C&EI Railway ran into trouble under the ownership of the Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland, and in 1933 was bankrupt again. A new C&EI railroad emerged in 1940 and remained independent until 1963, when the ICC gave control to Missouri Pacific, with the condition that the Evansville line be passed to the L&N, which took effect in 1969. Thus, C&EI gradually lost its identity against his two successors. , which in turn have given way through the merger to the current Union Pacific (the ex-MoPac St. Louis and Cypress lines) and CSX Transportation (ex-L&N to Evansville).
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