Glen,
I’ll give a short answer to your question and then elaborate.
The quick answer is both statements and more are correct. Calif. Packers(the early name of the company per my understaning
Which adopted its one product brand “Del Monte” as the “new” corporate name) had multiple plants at Rochelle,IL.
Plant 110 was just west of the CNW xing on the North side of the mains. This was the oldest of the plants.
Plant 115 was just west of plant 110.
Sometime prior to the building of the plants listed below i think plant 110 & 115 probably had switches off main 1.
At some currently unclear date Del Monte added a can manufacturing plant to the west of plant 115. This plant had 3 tracks serving it.
2 were for inbound tinplate and one for outbound cans.
Likely at the same time a lead and two track storage yard were added west of the can plant. This lead went a lengthy distance west ward. The switch was about a mile from Flag Center.
Rochelle Rose (a greenhouse) was served off an eastbound spur from the east end of this small yard . It was between the lead into the can plant and the storage yard.
There was a very steep grade westward on the yard lead and from the mainline switch to Flag Center was a stiff grade uphill. The crews switching Del Monte used this “bowl” on the mainline to make “drops” of cars out of the plant complex so as to get the cars west of the loco to run east back into town.
Del Monte plant 109 was SW of the CNW xing served by a switch off main 2 from the west.
Del Monte plant 199(added mid 1960’s was SE of the CNW xing served off a switch from Q main 2 east of the crossing. That lead went westward parallel to the CNW mains and dropped steeply down into a lengthy 3 track set out & pick up track arrangement
Parallel to the CNW mains. One of which acted as the lead into 4 tracks into the distribution building. To the west of the
Distribution building there was a six track yard used to assemble the strings of cars going into the building.
CNW had access from its westbound main(running left handed).
199 was served on an annual rotating basis by the Q,CB&Q & MILW.
The newest and final Del Monte facility was named the Flag Warehouse. It was a metal building off a spur on the storage track
Almost to the Standard Oil complex. I do not know when the Flag Warehouse was added but it seemed fairly new in 1973
When i spent 3 or 4 months on the night job at Rochelle.
Any one who wants to model heavy constant switching and heavy mainline movements should model Rochelle after about 1964
When Del Monte added 199 and Carnation built its complex which were added to facilities for Swift,Standard Oil, the power plant and
A number of smaller entities.
Leo
On Sep 30, 2026, at 2:31 PM, zephyr98072 via groups.io <glenehaug=msn.com@groups.io> wrote:
Since this question is related to updating the Rail Network on the website, I am posting it to the BRHS List as well as the CB&Q List.
Leo Phillip, you may be the best person to know the answer to this question.
The FSAC List of Station numbers lists a station called California Packing Co. at Rochelle, Illinois, with an FSAC number of 00085. That number suggests it was somewhere in the vicinity of MP 85 west of Rochelle (only about a mile from Flag Center) . I think this is way off.
Every source I can find indicates that California Packing was formerly Del Monte. If so, I believe Del Monte was south and west of the CB&Q/C&NW diamonds at the west end of Rochelle. The Q served this industry from a switch (on Main 2 south track) just east of the C&NW diamonds at MP 83.69.
Am I correct?
Glen Haug