On Friday I was able to attend a presentation and book signing for a new book about the Illinois Midland, generally considered the shortest railroad in the US at just under two miles long. This was held at the Lyon Farm near Yorkville, owned by the Kendall County Historical Society, and it has some interesting exhibits. So before the sun goes down, let's take a quick tour. There's the CB&Q depot from Plano:
And a wooden Q waycar with wood-beam trucks:
Still pretty complete:
Many historic buildings, more than shown here:
And lots of displays in the meeting hall:
Free Speech, Free Press, Free Homes - sounds good to me!
The book on the Illinois Midland was written by Jeff Kehoe, who is a member of the MRHA and has written several books about Milwaukee Road cabooses. He gave an excellent talk about the little railroad and its history, which was followed by a 30-minute video of home movies from the fifties showing the railroad in operation. And I got an autographed copy.
The book is quite good considering the size of the subject matter. Photographic evidence is limited in both scope and quality, but that can't be helped. Because the target audience includes people with little or no knowledge of railroads, the book contains quite a bit of information about how full-sized railroads worked, which most of us will find rather obvious. Being a Milwaukee Road enthusiast, the author naturally chooses his favorite road as the standard, and that's fine. Pictures of S-2 Northerns under construction are always interesting. And if you want to know where you could go nowadays to see a real steam locomotive in operation, there's a picture of the 1630. That might be a good place to visit....
The Illinois Midland has always been a sentimental favorite of mine, so it was a quite pleasant experience.
5 comments:
You might find this of interest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturers%27_Junction_Railway
I had the opportunity to work at Western Electric Co. Hawthorn Works in Cicero for one summer and spent some time on the rails. I always heard it was the shortest railroad line in the country at less than 2 miles.
addisonart2@att.net
I must admit I hadn't thought about the MJ, Art, although I knew existed, of course. The subject of really short standard-gauge shortlines can be very interesting. Just this morning Gerry Dettloff was telling me about the Hanover Railway in northwestern Illinois, which was about 2.5 miles long. I hadn't heard of it before, but like the Illinois Midland it was basically a long spur from an industry to the nearest mainline.
IRM is already much longer than any of these, for that matter. Now we just need to attract some on-line industries to provide a steady source of income.
The H & H Railroad in Stanwood WA is said to have been one mile long, and ran from about 1904 to the 1930s. Some info and photos are on the internet, but it appeared to have used a steam dummy and dummy, cable, or deelectrified single trucker trailer at first, then an early Climax locomotive later. It connected Stanwood with the Great Northern railroad depot in East Stanwood when roads were a muddy mess.
O. Anderson
Where was the Illinois Midland located? The reason I ask is because I'm in a model railroad club, and it is called "The Illinois Midland Model Railroad Club", and we're based around a fictional railroad that is also called "The Illinois Midland". The main difference is our Illinois Midland ran from Chicago to St Louis, so ours was much longer.
-Matt Maloy
It ran from Millington, where it interchanged with the Burlington's Fox River line, to Newark.
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