Waiting For The Harvest Season to Begin

A caboose and string of covered hopper cars wait at Jones Switch for the call to be pulled down to a nearby elevator to be filled with grain.

I don’t know who Jones was and why a switch on the old Peoria, Decatur & Evansville was named after him.

I just know that for as long as I can remember there has been a grain elevator southeast of my hometown of Mattoon, Ill., at a place called Jones Switch.

Today Interstate 57 goes practically over the top of Jones Switch. The PD&E, which was acquired by the Illinois Central Railroad early in the 20^th century is mostly gone east of Jones switch.

A portion of the PD&E remains in place from the Canadian National yard in Mattoon – what’s left of it anyway – out to the elevator at Jones Switch.

Traffic on this spur probably is sporadic. A week or more might go by without any trains moving over these tracks.

I left in Mattoon since 1983 and don’t get back there much so I don’t know how often that trains operate on this line.

I do know that the last two times that I saw Jones switch there was a string of covered hopper cars parked to the west and an IC caboose wearing the IC “death star” logo was being used as a shoving platform for CN crews backing the hoppers out to the elevator.

As far as I know, the occasional move of covered hoppers is the only traffic still left on this segment of the old PD&E.

There are countless locations such as Jones Switch scattered all over America. A branch line or a portion of a branch line remains in place to serve a particular customer or two that needs rail service.

The distance between the Mattoon yard and Jones Switch is a couple miles or so and the track is not in the best condition.

I have to wonder how much longer that CN will agree to move covered hoppers over this stretch without some track rehabilitation.

Whatever the case, I made it a point to visit Jones Switch last month during a visit back to Mattoon this past August  to do some railfanning of the former IC.

The caboose I had seen two years earlier on these tracks was there along with a string of covered hoppers. The elevator owns or leases a geep painted solid blue that has had its markings and numbers removed.

The diesel was silent and I didn’t observe any activity at the grain elevator.

The only sounds came from traffic rushing by on the interstate and the wind rustling the corn plants next to the tracks. Some of that grain might move over these very tracks in a couple more months.

But the corn was still quite green and would need more than a month to mature and be ready for harvest.

So everything waits for its time. The caboose, the covered hoppers and the blue geep will soon enough have work to do.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Rust is threatening to overcome the IC’s gray paint.

Some of the corn growing next to the tracks may well journey to market over those tracks and maybe even in these cars.

CN train crews are not allowed to go all the way to Jones’ switch.

The heritage of this locomotive is a mystery, what with its markings and numbers having been removed.

What tales could this geep tell of places its been and worked?

The elevator at Jones Switch looms in the background over Interstate 57. These tracks once went all the way to Evansville, Ind.

Need a used tractor? It still has lots of life left in it.

IC ‘Heritage Units’ on the Former IC

My first glimpse of IC 1027 came at Paxton, Ill. My eyes must have lighted up at the site of the IC “death star” logo on the nose.

I don’t know how many locomotives still exist that wear the Illinois Central’s Spartan black and white livery with the “deathstar” logo, but judging by what I read on railfan websites that number is small and shrinking.

The IC was acquired by Canadian National in 1998 and a year later CN began integrating the IC into its network. For awhile the term “CN-IC” was used in daily operations, but that term seems to have fallen by the wayside and it’s just CN today.

You might think that the former IC mainline between Chicago and New Orleans might be a good place to be if you wanted to see former IC locomotives still wearing IC “colors.”

But that is not necessarily the case. On my last couple of visits to the former IC I saw nary a locomotive in IC “colors.” I put the word “colors” in quotation marks because, truth be told, there is nothing colorful about the IC locomotive livery.

But the IC is and always will be my favorite railroad so those locomotives look beautiful to me. But fact I rarely get to see, let alone photograph, them only makes me covet them all the more.

Earlier this month I made a pilgrimage back to my home state to do some research and get in some railfanning along the former Mainline of Mid-America.

I could have chosen a better time. The weather was lousy nearly all the while that I was there with overcast skies and frequent rain.

But I did get lucky in one regard. I would see two locomotives still wearing the IC “deathstar” livery.

I was sitting at Paxton, Ill., listening to the scanner when the Desk 2 RTC Homewood dispatcher spoke with a southbound about to leave Gilman. The conversation revealed that the lead unit was the IC 1027. That got my attention big time.

So when that train came through Paxton my eyes must have widened at the sight of the lead unit with the white “deathstar” logo on the nose.

I thought that would be the end of it with the 1027, but later that day I was pulling out of a Culvers in Champaign when a southbound went past with the 1027 in the lead. The chase was on.

I managed to get this train at Pesotum and Mattoon. The latter happens to be where I grew up and hence getting an IC locomotive passing the former IC passenger station was special, very special.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

About to cross beneath the foot bridge in Paxton.

Part of the passenger station at Pesotum is visible at right. This is a nice place to hang out and watch trains the former IC.

The southbound is passing beneath the Richmond Avenue bride in Mattoon on Track No. 2. Note the remnants of the passenger platform in the lower right-hand corner. The New York Central’s St. Louis line use to cross over the IC on a bridge that used to be in the foreground of this view.

IC 1027 and train pass the former IC passenger station in Mattoon, which is still used by Amtrak. This was the money shot of the sequence in my view.

The IC 1004 was the third unit in the motive power consist but for me there is no “trail equals fail” when it comes to IC locomotives. It is shown in Neoga, Ill., the day before I captured the IC 1027.