Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Milwaukee's Rockton to Oglesby Branch

This map shows that Milwaukee Road's first route in Illinois entered the state at the middle of the north boundary and headed to the river towns on the west side.

Bill Molony posted, cropped

Bill Molony posted, cropped

A comment on Bill's posting explains:
Matt McClure The MILW line built west from Racine is the oldest MR line. It was built as a serious competitor to Galena & Chicago Union Railroad to Turner Junction. The thought was Racine could be a serious threat to Chicago in the 1840s.

It wasn't until 1872 that Milwaukee built their route from Chicago to meet their original Illinois route at Kittredge in 1880. In 1881, it built south from Rockton to Rockford and acquired trackage rights on the CB&Q/Chicago & Iowa to Davis Junction to tap the industry in Rockford and to connect their two Illinois routes.

Later they used the CB&Q route through Rochelle, IL to Stewart Junction and then built their own track down to Ladd. They added a branch to Cherry to access a coal mine owned by a subsidiary. [Harold J. Krewer The infamous mine at Cherry, IL (where 259 miners died in a 1909 fire) was on a short branch of the Milwaukee out of Ladd, IL and was in fact owned by its subsidiary, the St. Paul Coal Co. Every pound of coal out of that hole went into a Milwaukee Road locomotive.] Then they joined the NYC/II&I at Seatonville to share their bridge across the Illinois River to Granville where they built a branch to the east to access a coal mine at Oglesby.

I had originally thought Milwaukee built to Oglesby to tap the cement manufacturing industry of Buzzi Unicem and Lehigh Portland. But another comment on Bill's posting indicated their target was another coal mine.
Stuart B. Slaymaker Lots of coal on them thar branches. Oglesby, and especially the south end of the C.T.H. & S.E...

As the map indicates, the Milwaukee Road not only used the II&I between Seatonville and Granville, it also used its branches to DePue and McNabb.

The output of the coal mines in Cherry and Oglesby were not able to meet Milwaukee's demand for coal during WWI. So in 1921 they leased the Chicago, Terre Haute & South Eastern for 999 years to gain access to some of the many coal mines in southern Indiana. [DeBruler]



According to my 2005 SPV Map, the northern part between Rockton and Flagg Center (connection to BNSF mainline to St. Paul and the Northwest Pacific) was operated by Illinois, Chicago & Eastern (ICE). Canadian Pacific now owns the ICE assets. Everything south of Steward Junction has been abandoned.



I now need to update the following postings (that I can remember) to replace text with a link to this posting. After I fix these postings (don't hold your breath), this is a list of towns on this route for which I have more information.
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