[Wt-rails] I am interested in current status of former TP&W line from la Harpe to Mapleton

[George R. Carlisle, Jr.]

I am interested in current status of former Toledo, Peoria and Western line from La Harpe to Mapleton.  I saw in Trains Magazine that Keokuk Junction was interested in acquiring it. I hope they can operate on it ,if they do indeed purchase it. Of course, then it will not be available to develop into a trail.  


I understood the Keokuk Junction formerly had haulage rights from La Harpe to Peoria. They shipped cars, especially from Hubingers (sp?) plant to Peoria. They had some grain cars stored on a siding in Burnside. The old depot from that town was moved to Western Illinois Threshers north of Hamilton. They have a short loop track on their grounds to run motor cars during their meets in August, where old machinery and antique Automobiles (Even the famous 1956 Pontiac once owned by Lenore Madden, [1905-1995] who taught for many years at Hamilton High School).  Keokuk Junction more recently acquired the trackage from La Harpe to Lomax, whereupon an interlocking signalized junction with the main line of Burlington Northern Santa Fe is joined. A green signal on the home signal on the former TP&W branch authorizes a train to run extra to Fort Madison yard.  The trains were running there and then using trackage rights on Burlington Northern Santa Fe main to gGlesburg, and the branch line, on which TP&W has had trackage rights for some time, to Peoria.


The crossing of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Yates City to Vermont line is severed at Canton. The last time I was there, around Memorial Day, I noticed the former TP&W rails were intact but Burlington Northern was severed. The crossing was not interlocked, protected by a gate and primitive red-green signal (the lens now cracked). The gate was against severed line and clear for former TP&W line. That is next to the former International Harvester plant, which I understand closed in 1983 and is derelict now. At other places, the track looked rusty but intact. I saw no freight cars in elevator sidings. The crossing of main line BNSF at Bushnell was still intact, and interlocking signals were operating and red. The distant signals were yellow, as one along Route 41 south of Bushnell, governing westbound movements.This is the normal mode until the signal is cleared fro a train movement.

The derail east of la Harpe at the property line was set to derail any cars that should pass over it. It has a small key-type target on a switchstand. It may be seen from Route 9 a short distance west of the underpass of the railroad over the highway.    West of there, as of May 28, there was a Union Pacific Locomotive in siding of Keokuk Junction Keokuk line, the locomotive defaced with graffitti.  There were some grain cars in elevator siding.  

The flasher at Illinois 9 and 94, just west of Y junction of these highways, has the yellow monitor light on top of it, since Keokuk Junction assumed ownership. These aid the engineer to ascertain that the flasher is really operating when a train passses over the crossing. Short lines have these in order to obtain lower insurance rates.  Most of the flashers on Keokuk Junction have these lights. There are now gated crossings on US 136 just west of Elvaston and at east end of Keokuk bridge.  

The portion of the line from Hamilton to Warsaw is mostly out of service. The flasher on great River Road on this branch is marked "EXEMPT" meaning that those vehicles that stop at crossings do not ahve to for that one. No trains cross the road there any more. The track was damaged in 1993 floods and has sat dormant since. North of the crossing, there are cars stored ont eh track for loading of limestone from grays uarries. There is a wye track to turn equipment around, but north of Great River Road crossing. There are one or two private road crossings in that area marked only with a crossbuck.  

If that track si ever ripped up that would make a beautiful trail ans should be developed as such, but it is subject to flooding. There once was a laoding dock at the end of the line near end of Main Street downhill at riverfront from  downtown Warsaw.  But that is no longer in service. When the Burgemeister Beer plant closed in 1960's, the line saw little if any service after that.  There had been some cars unloaded on a trestle in a creek bed just south of the crossing mentioned above with EXEMPT flasher.  If stream was dry, trucks would position themeselves under railroad bridge, and fertilizer would be dropped from openings in hopper car to truck bed.   At one time, coal was hauled on the line to Warsaw, to be transloaded onto barges.  But that has gone the way of the Elvaston stockyard, where livestock was loaded onto TP&W trains.   They do not ship livestock by rail any more. The last cattle car I remember seeing, was an old one used for tools in maintenace of way service. It was parked on a siding on Burlington track in Bushnell.  

It is too bad the former CB& Q line from Burlington via Lomax, Dallas City, Carthage and Quincy was not preserved as a trail.  The land was given back to farmers, including the Belpine Corporation, operated by my cousins Dan and Mike Carlisle. They gained about nine acres, counting land along that line acquired since the rails were removed.  . Part of the new Route 336 from what used to be Woodville, and west of Loraine to Mendon, is on the former railroad right-of-way.  The new Dallas Water District water tower in Ferris sits where track used to be. There was an un-interlocked crossing of the two railways there, protected only by stop signs. Carthage had a similar crossing for the now-defunct Wabash line.  That too is mostly obliterated. After failure of Illinois Export Railway to purchase thsi line, it was abandoned in 1974. Carthage lost all rail service and has heretofore been hampered by poor highways and water supply.  The former Carthage College campus is derelict.  Let us hope the new Illinois 336 will bring development to the area.  

Such is a breif history of the line during last fifty eyars.   Perahps there is still an area where a trail could be developed.  If the rest of the Burlington Northern line from Yates City to Vermont were removed, that could become a trail. Its most scenic portion is along Spoon River between Ipava and Lewistown, with access to parts of the Spoon River Scenic Drive. Therei s an old wooden grain elevator on east side of Ipava.   I remember the old depot that was just east of Route 136 crossing. There were still passenger trains, the indirect route #47 and #48  in the early 1950's, that took a  circuitous stop-at-every-grain elevator route between Quad Cities via Galesburg, and a meal stop at Grier's greasy spoon,  next to yards in Galesburg, and to Yates City, to Vermont, to Concord and then along line through Winchester, Piasa to Alton and to St. Luois.  The latter portion of line is also abandoned and gone now.  

The line from Burlington through Carthage had a single car gasiline-electric "Doodlebug" until 1957, mostly carrying mail and express but a few passengers connecting at Burlington or Quincy. My grandfather George Ernest Carlisle shipped cream from his dairy cows on that line and transhipped on main line to Beatrice Creamery in Galva.  He rode in a  drover's caboose when he shipped cattle to Chicago and came home with a special rate Drover's ticket on main line passenger trains and the Doodlebug to Adrian.  They used to buy oysters at the store in Adrian, a whole bucketful for a dollar in the Depression, when they were so poor they burned cornstalks in the furnace.  Those wre shipped on the Doodlebug train.  


Another possibility is the former Minneapolis and St. Louis line west of Peoria to Farmington and beyond.  The portion west of Farmington is mostly reverted to farmers now, but that east was still reasonably intact but derelict, with trees growing between rails and crossing signals turned sideways and marked EXEMPT.  Some rail crossings have been paved over.  Since the coal mine closed, that line has been out of service.  The Chicago and Northwestern merged with Minneapolis and St. Louis in the early 1960's but they soon abandoned most of what was in Illinois. A barge rammed the Mississippi River bridge at Keithsburg, and it had to be torn down.  That line once had a yard and division point in Monmuth. There is not a trace of that now.  

Such is a breif history of some railroads in Western Illinois that no longer are in service. Unfortunatley, most are not intact enough to be develoepd as trails.  But perhaps some shorter stretches may still be adaptable to that perpose.

I would like to see the Llne to Warsaw so developed, although it is subject to flooding, because it would tie in with other recreational opportunoities along Great River Road.

George R. Carlisle







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