Hello Pete and All -
I have discovered - rather late in life - that if I just keep my yap shut the
people who actually know something will come forward with the needed
information.
When my family moved to Quincy in the summer of 1952 we rented a house at Sixth
and Locust - way in the northwest corner of town, close to the Q mainline. Many
a night I was lulled to sleep by the sounds of double-headed steam locomotives
blasting out of town with the drag for Galesburg.
The mainline grade out of Quincy was steep, but short. Coming over the river
bridge and the upper bay bridge the main was running pretty much straignt east.
It then made a sharp curve to the north and climbed up the face of the bluff -
the numbers given are a rise of 60' to 90' in a run of (?) less than a mile. At
the top the main made a sharp curve to the east - northeast and headed for
Galesburg. The "new" line at Quincy comes right off the top of
the bluff and stays high until it gets to Missouri. The current
connection out of the yard makes a steep climb up to the main and a sharp curve
to the west - almost a mirror image of the original layout north of Carthage
Junction.
Now, I have absolutely no documentation, but logic would say that when the yard
was built in West Quincy in 1947 provision was made to allow freight trains to
run directly through to Galesburg. I was not aware of any changes or new
connections made at Carthage Junction in 1952-'53 and, yes, I was there. Rode
around the wye on an 05 in '52.
PAW
We return now to our regularly scheduled programming.