Illinois Central/Canadian National Champaign Branch

[BOK]

Hi Mike:

This branch is a nice choice and takes me back about 50 years when my folks moved us from Minnesota to Urbana, Il. where I wound up working foe three of the four railroads which which went through C-U: The IC, the P&E and the IT.

The line you are modeling was originally called the Havanna Line because it extended from Champaign out through White Heath, Clinton, Lincoln and terminated at Havana,IL on the Illinois river. The interesting thing about the branch was that all branch trains including the Humko Job (we'll get to that in a minute) had to back south out of Champaign yard into the depot area in order to clear the branch switch and then west out of the depot. On the west side of Champaign were the two biggest industries in either Champaign or Urbana (this being a college town and home of the University of Illinois the city "fathers' didn't promote much industry for the economy instead living off the UofI) Kraft foods and Humko. Both of these were large food processing plants with Kraft making Miricle Whip salad dressing among other things and Humko similar products for private labeling. When I was living there in the early 60s Humko/Kraft was getting tank cars of vegtable oil, probably some small covered hoppers of sugar/flour and many jumbo mechanical reefers (any road name and any color of the rainbow) for out bound movement of product. Even though the IC switched both plants all the other roads participated in either inbound or outboud traffic and there was a lot of interchange moves between all roads down by the old Champaign tower in the city.
Alas times change. The IC now CN removed the old jct. switch south of the diamond (interlocking with the old P&E now NS to Urbana) and the Humko (Kraft plant has been closed and torn down) uses the old P&E, transfer track/northwest leg of the wye  to get from the yard out to Humko and the rest of the branch west where it stubs. About the only traffic on the branch is tanks of sweetners and oil along with some covered hoppers (probably plastic resins for inhouse packaging) and of course plastics hoppers for the plastics plant west of Humko. I am not sure if the spur up to the plastics plant and passes the aggregate outfit gets rock or sand and I know the lumber yards are gone. There may still be a paper box board (makes cardboard boxes) company around the Humko complex but that's about all the traffic except when the run an extra out of the yard to Bondville west of your layout to pull unit trains of beans and corn.

As far as you plan is concerned I go along with the others for a runaround track to the left and maybe a long storage spur for staging. Believe me you wouldn't need much... 4-6 " wide in N scale at the most). Using an IC GP and caboose for making the shove will make an interesting layout with lots of operation but minimal maintainence in a small space.

Keep in mind you really don't need much for realistic operation. I know, because after working for 15 different railroads in 47 years many of them short lines) I have run a lot of railroads with very little track, equipment or people.

Barry

[nscalemike]

Hi Mike:

This branch is a nice choice and takes me back about 50 years when my folks moved us from Minnesota to Urbana, Il. where I wound up working foe three of the four railroads which which went through C-U: The IC, the P&E and the IT.

The line you are modeling was originally called the Havanna Line because it extended from Champaign out through White Heath, Clinton, Lincoln and terminated at Havana,IL on the Illinois river. The interesting thing about the branch was that all branch trains including the Humko Job (we'll get to that in a minute) had to back south out of Champaign yard into the depot area in order to clear the branch switch and then west out of the depot. On the west side of Champaign were the two biggest industries in either Champaign or Urbana (this being a college town and home of the University of Illinois the city "fathers' didn't promote much industry for the economy instead living off the UofI) Kraft foods and Humko. Both of these were large food processing plants with Kraft making Miricle Whip salad dressing among other things and Humko similar products for private labeling. When I was living there in the early 60s Humko/Kraft was getting tank cars of vegtable oil, probably some small covered hoppers of sugar/flour and many jumbo mechanical reefers (any road name and any color of the rainbow) for out bound movement of product. Even though the IC switched both plants all the other roads participated in either inbound or outboud traffic and there was a lot of interchange moves between all roads down by the old Champaign tower in the city.
Alas times change. The IC now CN removed the old jct. switch south of the diamond (interlocking with the old P&E now NS to Urbana) and the Humko (Kraft plant has been closed and torn down) uses the old P&E, transfer track/northwest leg of the wye  to get from the yard out to Humko and the rest of the branch west where it stubs. About the only traffic on the branch is tanks of sweetners and oil along with some covered hoppers (probably plastic resins for inhouse packaging) and of course plastics hoppers for the plastics plant west of Humko. I am not sure if the spur up to the plastics plant and passes the aggregate outfit gets rock or sand and I know the lumber yards are gone. There may still be a paper box board (makes cardboard boxes) company around the Humko complex but that's about all the traffic except when the run an extra out of the yard to Bondville west of your layout to pull unit trains of beans and corn.

As far as you plan is concerned I go along with the others for a runaround track to the left and maybe a long storage spur for staging. Believe me you wouldn't need much... 4-6 " wide in N scale at the most). Using an IC GP and caboose for making the shove will make an interesting layout with lots of operation but minimal maintainence in a small space.

Keep in mind you really don't need much for realistic operation. I know, because after working for 15 different railroads in 47 years many of them short lines) I have run a lot of railroads with very little track, equipment or people.

Barry

Barry,

Very interesting information there, thank you!  A couple questions though, do you have any ideas if this line has a name currently?  I'm calling it the Champaign Branch for lack of better information, and I have heard the local referred to as the Humko Job, but I've never asked and never heard if there is a name they refer to this line.  Also, any ideas when they abandoned the line past Bondville?  Current rumors have them closing the line from Champaing to Bondville soon to, but right after they told me that they said 'maybe after next years harvest'.  What about the lumber yards, when did they cut their rail service?

Everything else is still about the same.  I see them backing out of the yard everyday at work to catch the now NS line.  Just in the last couple months they finally pulled up the last grade crossing on Market St from the old s/w quad track.  And you sure don't want to be caught at a crossing by one of the busy jobs.  Stopping to throw all the switches, move the train, throw them back going from the branch, to the NS line, and then the wye leg into the yard, it takes quite a while.

One thing I will note,  Kraft is alive and well still.  The Humko plant was the one that acutally closed, about 3 years ago now I think, maybe 2??  What used to be the old Humko plant lot is now being build as a massive (something like 700,000 square feet I think) distrubution warehouse for Kraft.  UI is a big provider of jobs, but I know a lot of people are very happy Kraft has quit their talk of closing shop.  Instead they have had two major additions and now this.  I'm very curious and hopeful there will be outbound rail service again but believe it's unlikely.  The concrete place does still get rock, I think there is about 5 hoppers sitting there right now.  The only other place I know getting service is Alloy Engineering,  maybe 4 times a year they get a hopper of sand.  Not very often it seems. 

[BOK]

It was always called either the Hack line or the Humko as far as I know. The line was abandoned in pieces as the railroads in the 70s used this technique to show looses and be able to pull up costly branch lines. I would guess it was probably in the 80s sometime. The interesting thing is that there are only five miles of track missing between Bondville and the north end of the Monticello railroad museum where I used to own a couple of cabooses but that's another story. As long as there is corn and beans to move for export i figure they will keep the line to Bondville. Railroad rumors are always rampant and many times just passed on gossip to stir folks up. The lumber yards probably quit getting inbound lumber sometime in the 80s also with the advent of Home Depot, Lowes and Mennards.
I don't understand why the CN crews need to back out of the yard to get to Humko as there is a nice long run around track at Humko and certainly in the yard. maybe it just makes it easier to line up cars in the yard and then shove out to Humko to easily spot them up.
I guess I got the wrong information regarding Kraft vs. Humko shutting down. Maybe with the new distribution building they will get a bit more business but it's doubtful they will ship out by reefer or boxcar but who knows. I forgot about Alloy Engineering getting an occasional car or two of moulding sand and wasn't sure if the concrete company got aggregate.
Back in my days as a youth J.M.Jones was a big cold storage outfit receiving a lot of perishables (reefers) for IGA first in a 60s "new facility" down by the old freight station and water tower and then moving to a larger newer (70s) facility out by the yard. According to Goggle Earth the track has been removed to that facility. Eisner Foods also had a two track grocery warehouse west of the yard and Stayle had a large bean elevator. There was also a simple, oil unloading facility close to the old passenger depot to supply fuel for heating the depot, express and freight house. The UI also had a big cold storage facility south of the heating plant which got boxes and reefers of supplies and food. of course the UI power/heat plant used to receive 20 cars of coal a day and the extra tracks just west of it along the mainlines were used to handle football special trains in the fall. There were a few other rail served, industries scattered about the two towns but most were in Champaign with few in Urbana.

Barry

[nscalemike]

It is quite funny for me to hear all this.  As a Champaign immigrant of only a 9 years plus only 30 something years old, I've never seen any of this stuff.  You look hard enough around town you can see some of the last remaining signs of prior rail service.  I have also heard from life long citizens that Champaign was quite the railroad town at one point.  All that stuff you talk about is gone, except the football fan special track just west of the mainline.  The track is still there, but I haven't seen a football special on it since they started their latest major losing streak!  I can spend a long time looking at the old photos of the downtown area where the old freight houses and service tracks used to be at. I've followed rails sticking out of the ground all over the north end of town, and obviously one of the big signs of change is the overpasses that are abandoned along the mainline.  Some of them at 5-10' below current track grade and each street seems to have at least 2 going different directions.  I always believed the UI power plant took shipments but I was never able to verify that.  I can't imagine that place taking 20 cars a day. 

As far as Humko, if you are referring to the run around tracks outside the complex along the main branch track, those are gone now too.  If I remember correctly there was one directly south of the Humko facility.  The west switch was pulled out on probably 06 or 07, and today it is used for storage, although typically there may only be 1-5 cars sitting on it since Humko closed.  The run around that I remember was just east of Humko/Krafts gates and it is also gone.  I remember chasing someone down the service drive from McKinley Rd towards the pipe plant east of Kraft late one night.  That runaround was still in service and they were moving a cut of cars on it.  The track was in such bad shape the cars were rocking back and forth something fiece.  I had about a 10' path I was going down, semis parked on my right and the train moving on the left.  I just remember saying a prayer the whole way for that train not to tip over and kill me.  It didn't, and I caught the guy, and life went on.  It was really something seeing that track after a rain or snow,  20 feet worth of track would get buried in the dirt and all you would see a few days later is a groove from the wheels of the cars being pulled out.  Again, I can't remember for certain, but I'm guessing sometime around 2008-2010 they finally pulled that track up and took out all the extra switches at the enterance to Humko plant.  As it stands today, I don't believe there is a runaround anywhere out there.  I'm not 100% certain about inside the plant because I've only been inside that place once, but I know for a fact there is nothing along the line anymore. 

[BOK]

Well that is surprising that the Humko runaround track is gone and the probably explains the reason they use two units or a caboose to shove out there from the yard. I never understood railroads removing excess track that can more effeciently service customers but I guess those are decisions made by folks at the "top" who have forgotten what it's like to switch cars. I have worked several places where if only there was a couple of car lengths more on the end of a stub it would have saved so much time and hassel to switch a customer.

With all of this discussion of what Central Illinois railroading was like years ago, you and others have a "time machine" which allows to re-live what it was like in the 50/60s merely by visiting the Monticello Railroad Museum. I have been a life member there for years and at one time owned the the red, wooden, Soo Line caboose which is back at the museum after fifteen years in Minnesota/Wisconsin and now owned by the family who also owns the IC baggage dorm, coach 1906. At one time I also was part owner of one of the IC, red, steel cabooses. Monticello with all it's great equipment including an entire IC, orange and brown passenger train, the recently rebuilt Southern steam locomotive, along with many well preserved pieces of equipment, depots, the new " Dick Stair" tower and 8 miles of well- maintained track with a wye at each end allows folks to truly re-live what it was like to be around railroads in the 60s. I can't think of a finer and  easy to enjoy railroad museum than the one at Monticello, IL.

Keep up the good work and thanks for posting your layout progress. Also enjoy your special time with your newborn as they grow up very fast.

Barry

[DKS]

I never understood railroads removing excess track that can more effeciently service customers but I guess those are decisions made by folks at the "top" who have forgotten what it's like to switch cars.

My suspicion is that the bean counters calculated the extra fuel/time required for the additional switching moves was cheaper than maintaining a bunch of extra track and switches...

[BOK]

David, I am sure you are right. But it did make it difficult for us who did the switching.

Barry

[nscalemike]

Time for another update. 

The first project to complete was the deconstruction of the old layout.  It was partially started since about a month before my boy was born I was going to do a different rebuild.  That was quickly shelved but I did have all the old track up before I closed up the room for a few months.  So, all I needed to do to start with was get the benchwork out.  I thought briefly about retrofitting the old to the area of the new but then decided against that with the belief it would be easier and not much money to just start fresh.  A few hours later my trash pile was full and the room was down to the metal shelf brackets on the wall.


Excuse the mess!  The room was a safety hazard for several weeks!

I rearranged the brackets to fit the new footprint.  Next, I decked the brackets with 1/2" OSB, topped with 1" foam.  I had previously determined that there was no depth below grade greater than what the 1" foam would provide.  I saw no reason to build the layout up and higher or spend the extra money on 2" foam!

I also build the support for the new mini pennisula.  I wanted this to look finished and part of the room.  Part of my self compromise with this final design was I needed to rework my workbench area.  I was using a L shaped corner desk, but I didn't want it sticking out from the left wall 3X as far as the layout above it.  I decided I would move it to the long wall and just do a straight 8' countertop.  I needed a new place for my tv and decided this pennisula, which would be perpendicular to the desk would be a good place.  While I have taken the time to build custom finish grade cabinets in the past I did not want to do so for this project.  I didn't have the time, all my 'good' tools are packed away, and it is still only my train room.  I pieced together a old cabinet I had on hand for the end, then maple finished particle board to build the rest of it.  I think it came out decent.  You can see here the new benchwork in place and the start to the pennisula support:



You can see the old light valance still in place in these pics.  That was coming out as soon as I figured out a better way to construct it.

Next, I had to move the safe to get the left wall benchwork done.  Before I could do that I had to move my desk.  Since the room was already a total mess I didn't want to just pile all that stuff on the floor.  Believe it or not I acutally had some in progress projects on the desk surface.  Finally, one day I moved everything to the layout surface, took the old desk down, and cleaned that corner up.  I constructed a new work surface out of a 8' countertop.  I had to cut the backsplash off to keep it the same depth as the layout, 18.5".  I was concerned about the counter spanning the 8' length and it sagging in the center.  Since my goal was no legs in the center and a finished product that looked decent, I decided to swing by our public works office.  There the signs manager located a 9' speed limit sign post they were getting ready to recycle.  I took the post home, cut the sign off, cleaned it up and shot it with a coat of black spray paint.  I then used 3/4" maple shelving boards, standing on end, to support either end of the counter.  I notched an L in the top front corner of the supports so the sign post could rest there.  It is locked from moving forward by the lip on the counter top.  I screwed the back of the counter into the studs on the wall to keep it from moving side to side or pulling away from the wall.  I now had a new work surface that looks nice, is stable, and hopefully plent big!  I thought I had snapped a photo but I can't seem to find it.  I'll take a new one soon.

I was then able to finish the benchwork up, decked it all with the foam, and was ready for lights.

Next up, valance construction. . . . .

[Scottl]

I really like this new layout and approach.  I think you will be very happy with this and it will match your interests nicely.

Didn't you have a bonfire with the last layout?   Why throw out what you can burn... 

[nscalemike]

Didn't you have a bonfire with the last layout?   Why throw out what you can burn... 

Yes, I did!  But since then my big fire area has been cleaned up and there is now fence posts going through the middle of it in preperation of me finishing the fence this spring.  I either had to cut it up into small pieces for the patio firepit, or throw it away.  I threw it out.

[Scottl]

Too bad, there is something so cathartic about burning it.  Ah well, the main thing is you have a great new plan and you are well on your way.

[C855B]

... there is something so cathartic about burning it.  ...

Oh, I dunno... on our big project, the ka-WHAM! of stuff being pitched into the dumpster is surprisingly satisfying.

[iccn1000]

What's so special about Centralia?

Just going yard to yard (staging to staging).
Effingham is the main focus and its kinda in the middle of the sub.

Thanks

Rob Gruber
www.dcctrain.com

[C855B]

Thanks. I was a little curious if you were going to model the junction or were shooting for a pre-1980s representation. Effingham is a good choice for focus, however.

[nscalemike]

A week or so ago I wrote about the deconstruction of the old layout and the initial stages of the new.  I promised some pictures of early work that was done and after a marathon stretch of 10 days of work out of the last 11 I finally have a chance to get those posted.  So here it goes:

First up is the desk.  Like I mentioned before I constructed my new desk out of a kitchen countertop, bought from Menards for cheap.  I wanted it to stay under the layout, so I had 18" of depth, which meant it needed cut down from the standard 24" size.  I supported the outside corners with 3/4" shelf boards on end, attached with L brackets.  I did not want a leg in the center of the desk so I used an old street sign post to support the 8' along the front.  I notched a L in the top front corner of the shelf board for the sign post to rest in.  It won't move forward because of the lip on the countertop.  Here is a pic of what I mean:



The notch was a bit deeper than I needed, so a couple of shims hold the post tight against the countertop.  It is just held in place by the weight of everything.  I'm sure I could knock that post out with a hammer but everyday use won't make it move.  Nice and solid, and the post was free from the scrap pile!

Here is an overview of the finished desk.  Don't pay attention to the mess I haven't organized it yet.



The other issue was support for the pennisula.  It is located directly right of the desk.  I wanted it to look nice since it would be a focal point of the overall room.  I wanted it to turn into a bit of an entertainment center, holding my television and keeping it out of my desk area.  I also had room for a shelf above the television and thanks the to flatness of tv's today it only needed to be 7" deep.  I divided the pennisula in half, and used the remaining 12" or so for shelves on the backside.  Here is a quick pic of the front:



Sorry for the bad pics, these were all quick cell phone shots.  I will finish off the top with the fascia to help frame it out and block the view to the otherside but this is basically what I look at sitting at my desk now.  Certainly not fancy living room quality furniture but it is much better than 2x4's and a rolling cart which was what I was using before!  Obviously I just took this today and there is more work being done up top that I haven't posted about yet.  More will come soon and as always, thanks for looking!

Mike