Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Rock Island Technical Society

Progress has been nil for the past month.  Traveling, summer schedule, etc. has got me out of my routine.  Hopefully when school starts back up in a few weeks I will get back into my groove working on the layout.

Today, I joined the Rock Island Technical Society.  I have considered it for a while, but mainly after exploring Peoria, IL in person, I got the bug to learn more about the ROCK.  I'm looking forward to seeing what information I can absorb.  At some point, I would like to start decorating my layout room with Rock Island memorabilia.

Today at lunch, I was reading an article from the Peoria Star dated January 4th, 1960 (provided by my adopted Aunt Carol).  At this time in history, Peoria was the fifth largest railroad center in the country and third of the major Midwest gateways.  Chicago handled 33 railroads, St. Louis 21 and Peoria 15.  The advantage for Peoria was that freight could be moved through there east to west much quicker than through Chicago or St. Louis.  In 1960, around 15,000 cars originate and terminate in Peoria each month, but is only a fraction of the traffic moving through there

The fifteen railroads include: Peoria & Pekin Union, Chicago & Illinois Midland, Chicago & Northwestern, Minneapolis & St. Louis, Illinois Central, New York Central (Peoria & Eastern), Nickel Plate, Pennsylvania, Gulf Mobile & Ohio, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Illinois Terminal, Rock Island and Atchinson, Topeka and Santa Fe.

Thanks Carol for the tour of Peoria and information researched.  It is greatly appreciated! 

No comments:

Post a Comment