This weeks Kendall County Record has a couple RR items.
In the "yesteryear" feature section it is reported that the CB&Q
posted notice on termination of the last two passenger trains on the Fox River
Branch in January of 1952. These were motor car runs 133/134 and were still
handling express,baggage and cream.These jobs ran between Aurora and
Streator. The paper didnt have details on the trucks that would be in
handling the business in the future.
Front page news was that the Illinois Railway may have been blocking the
only road xing for the portion of Rivers Edge subdivision north of the
tracks while cleaning up a 4-5 car derailment on Monday evening.Hulcher or
a competitor had numerous sidewinders in the photo. This subdivision is
about 1/2 way down Fox Hill(in the S curve between Fox and Yorkville) (Karl
and Doug you wouldnt believe how this area has changed from the 60s and
70s).
The city council and police chief arent happy as this is the third
derailment since 2010. I did notice that a crew was using a mobile shear this
week to cut up the cars that have been on the elevator track(see Zephyr
62,thanks Steve) since 2010 from the campground derailment just east of
town.
As to the current derailment it is this old,expierenced guys' opinion,that
the Illinois Railway crew was complying with track speed requirements as they
only derailed 4-5 cars of a 112 car train of loaded sand cars, moving at
speed,on a downhill slope !
Unlike the 70s on this branch.
Leo Phillipp