Leo Phillipp would likely have some photos or know of some. But I am sure anyone who does have photos would be welcome.
That was an operation my much older brothers (18 and 14 years old, I was a “whoops”) watched and I watched. There were three lots between our house and that spur, so action on that spur was hard to miss.
Small correction (just a block away). Once the track to the quarries and a brewery (later the city power plant and a lumber yard) curved off the triple track mainline, it ran down a kind of odd street, Ewing (we pronounced it "U-wing”). Ewing didn’t have curbs or gutter or sidewalks. Ewing was a block away from Mill Street which did have curbs and gutter and sidewalks. In fact Mill Street ran under the railroad. It ran through what was called "the Mill Street viaduct" so the curve of the spur from the mainline had to be very sharp.
My brothers saw G-class engines (I assume from Aurora) backing down and coming back. By my time it was an R-5 Prairie and later an O-1 Mikado.
Leo does work on all kinds of things! He might not get a chance to finish something (I bet he has a thousand projects) on the operations of the mainline train that worked the industries main line from Aurora to Congress Park (?) and back). Naperville would be an interesting place because not only were the quarries worked (the house I grew up in had a basement made from quarry rock) - and later other things - but also (Leo pointed out to me) there was a kind of amusement park on the West Branch of the DuPage River that the Q served with a train from Chicago (something completely gone by the end of the Depression). It explained the strange overgrown spur that I noticed as a kid walking along the mainline. That spur divided from the downtown spur and went along the main line west from Mill Street to the river crossing.
Doug (Doug Hosler)
Hello,
Does anyone have any pics of the CB&Q Naperville branch that ran down the center of Mill Street to the Quarry near Naperville's downtown?? I can't find any pics online of this unique and long gone operation. Thanx in Advance!!
Mike SchattL