Re: [CBQ] Buda-Elmwood Branch Passenger Service

[STEVEN HOLDING <sholding@sbcglobal.net>]

David
My April '46 Official Guide shows Daily except Sunday Mixed train Buda to Yates City and Yates City to Peoria.  Looks like the job worked out of Buda  6:50     AM out of Buda and Yates City 9:40-2:50 back into Buda 5:00PM
Oct. 1955 shows Mixed Service and it looks like the job may have come out of Galesburg or Yates City  Yates City 11:00 AM Buda 2:00-2:20  Schedules in the     GT-Peoria do not jive.
April 1958 just shows Mixed train service Consult agent  No times shown
Would be neat on a model railroad to change locations where jobs worked out of and then maybe even change them to run in the opposite direction
Steve in SC

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From: David <dpj1974@mediacombb.net>
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, December 15, 2012 2:37:06 PM
Subject: [CBQ] Buda-Elmwood Branch Passenger Service

 

List,

Does anyone have the date when the Q ended regular passenger train service on the Buda-Elmwood Branch?

The latest "official" info I have is from a CB&Q timetable effective October 26, 1941. It shows train No. 110 departing Buda at 0715 and arriving Yates City at 1000. The train then became No. 10, departing Yates City at 1045, arriving Peoria at 1140. Counterpart No. 11 left Peoria at 1315, arriving Yates City exactly an hour later. Becoming No. 111, it left Yates City at 1445 and arrived Buda at 1645. The timetable shows only the Yates City-Peoria segment operated as a mixed train.

Dave Lewis' July 1944 TRAINS Magazine article on Peoria references this train:

"Mikes of the 4900 class pull freight, and a little old Atlantic pulls the mixed train on the Buda Branch, leaving Buda in the morning, entering the Peoria branch at Elmwood, then continuing to Peoria. It is due in Peoria at 12 noon and should leave at 1 o'clock. Frequently there is just time to turn the engine, unload and load express, and pull right out again. This train does the switching and local work both ways and sometimes has, Peoria-bound, as many as 15 freight cars in addition to the combination mail, express and
passenger coach, Leaving, it usually has just the engine and combination car."

I figure the train lasted through the Second World War, but have no information as to when it last ran. One possibility is when in January 1945 the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) ordered railroads to drop passenger trains that operated at less than 35 percent capacity in November 1944. I'd say trains 110-10 and 11-111 were probably marginal even in 1945, and bus service was available at most on-line towns.

Had the Q intended to drop its Buda Branch trains, the Illinois Commerce Commission could have refused to allow it (they did this to the C&IM, which wanted to drop both pair of Pekin-Springfield trains per ODT order), so trains might have endured a few years longer. I understand that Q offered caboose accommodations for passengers as late as the early 1950s.

David P. Jordan
Dunlap, Illinois

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