Old Rails

Old Rail, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Fun fact-when the rails on train tracks are made at the foundry, the dates are cast or otherwise written directly into the metal. This helps the railroad to know when they were made and installed, and makes maintaining them a little easier. If you look at the rails at your local station (staying safely away from the tracks, of course), you can probably see the dates on the inside of the rails.

This one is on an abandoned stretch of the former Chicago Great Western mainline from Chicago to Oelwein, Iowa. It is by far the oldest rail I have seen in the wild, and connects to the mainline, which uses rails from the late sixties, probably just before or after the CGW's merger with the Chicago and North Western. Located in St. Charles, Illinois, it used to serve a foundry on the west side of town, not far from the crossing over the Fox River. When the Union Pacific took over the line from the Chicago and North Western (who had gotten it when CNW took over the CGW), there were still a couple of customers on this side of the river. However, the last customer closed a few years ago, and the UP petitioned to abandon the line entirely.

The tracks already ended about a mile west of here, at an old warehouse that has since been demolished. Construction on Illinois Route 64 severed the line at a grade crossing as well. I imagine that there will eventually come a time when these rails are completely gone, leaving nothing but the railbed.

Fox River Crossing

Fox River Crossing, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

This is the former Chicago Great Western railroad bridge over the Fox River, in St. Charles, Illinois. Originally part of CGW's mainline to Oelwein, Iowa, this line became a secondary route after the CGW was bought by the Chicago and North Western (another classic Midwestern road), which gradually cut the line shorter and shorter. Latterly part of the Union Pacific system, this line ended a few miles west of the bridge, dead ending just before a highway crossing. Today it's unused, the last customer on that side of the Fox having closed in 2009, and today the rails are cut off from the rest of the system by road construction on Route 64, which tore up the tracks at the grade crossing and which have not been reinstated.

Abandoned in place, the bridge and the tracks that are still there are some of the few remaining CGW structures in the area, which includes a few repurposed stations to the east and another bridge further west. One of the biggest legacies of the CGW is the Great Western Trail, a bike path that uses the former right of way, including that westernmost bridge in Elburn.