"Truncated" was a poor choice of words. I should have said shortened.
The lines from Galesburg and Aurora originally (from 1904 on) paralleled each
other from the Plum River bridge into Savanna where they became LaCrosse Lines
double track. About a mile of the Galesburg line was removed in the 60's. The
bridge drawings indicate that this was done in 1964.
However, the reason for my question is that there are discrepancies in the
bridge drawings that tell conflicting stories about where the Galesburg line
ended. Proposed drawings from 1961-62 indicate that the Galesburg bridge is to
be removed, the Savanna line bridge is to be skewed slightly from the
centerline between the two original tracks, and the new RH Switch to Galesburg
takes up the whole southerly span of the realigned bridge. Later bridge
drawings show one track over the river, and indicate a track shift at the south
abutment but don't show any alignment, and don't mention the switch at all.
This later scheme makes more sense to me, because a switch on the bridge would
have required either two spans or a taper span. The switch location off the
south end of the bridge confirms the more logical scheme. As you pointed out,
the second track has been restored, so one can't tell what happened by visiting
the site.
On a side note, I have always wondered why the Q took this mile of track out.
There is no indication on any drawings or timetables that the new switch was
powered (I assume it had an E.L. although nothing I can find confirms).
Galesburg trains would have had to "hand-throw" their way on and off the
Savanna main. It appears the Q went to the expense of realigning the bridge
and a significant amount of single track on both sides just to get rid of a
mile of track and 3 - 1904 bridge spans, and created an operating bottleneck
(and they didn't retire a turnout, just relocated one), and this doesn't make
any sense to me. Maybe there is more to the story.
Glen Haug
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.comFrom: borneo@19main.comDate: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:40:32
-0600Subject: Re: [CBQ] Plum River - Location of Galesburg Line Switch
Glen,Don't know what you mean by "truncated".YL 53.005 GT-SAVMP 53.31 end
GT-SAVMP 142.33 AUR-SAVPlum River is a river at Bridge 142.35, AUR-SAV.MP
142.89 AUR DIV to LX LINERuss----- Original Message ----- From: "zephyr98072"
<glenehaug@msn.com>To: <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>Sent: Monday, 26 January, 2009
19:42Subject: [CBQ] Plum River - Location of Galesburg Line Switch> I'm looking
for a fairly precise location of the point of switch from > the Galesburg line
to the Savanna line in 60's, when the line from > Galesburg was truncated at
Plum River. Is there anyone on the list > that can tell me if the switch was
actually on the bridge, or just off > the east (south) end. Thanks for any
info.> > Glen Haug> > > ------------------------------------> > Yahoo! Groups
Links> > > >
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Windows Live? Hotmail®?more than just e-mail.
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