Archive: Quincy, IL: Wabash Depot

James Holzmeier posted
Also in FamilyOldPhotos
Robert Daly posted an uncolored version

This one caught my eye because of its elegance. Then it caught my brain because I think of CB&Q going to Quincy and Wabash going to Hannibal, MO.

It turns out the the Wabash had a branch that left the mainline at Bluffs, IL. The track still exists to the CIPSCO power plant south of Meredosia. But I see the loop of track servicing the power plant has been removed. I doubt that they stock enough coal from barges to last them through the winter. I assume it has either switched to natural gas or closed. But I see a couple of plants south of the power plant that are still rail servered. (There were cuts of cars spotted at the plants.) And there is a yard in Bluffs that would support a local train.

The Wabash branch crossed the Illinois River just a little to the north of the power plant an basically followed IL-99. For example, we see a tree line and land scar north of Hersman. At Mount Sterling it went along the south side and followed the diagonal of US-24. You can then follow the land scar through Timewell (now part of Mound Station?). It then follows the diagonal of US-24 again until US-24 bends but it goes further north and then west. It went through Clayton along Railroad Street. The grain elevator has grown since Norfolk Western abandoned these branches because it covers up a branch that curved north out of Clayton and went northerly to Carthage and then west to join (the old) Toledo, Peoria & Western at Evanston, IL. It used the TP&W route to access Keokuk. But I'm interested in the branch that kept going west until it joined the CB&Q at Center Point. Center Point is the label used by the SPV Map, but it must have been a control point name because Google shows the town as Camp Point, IL.

AdamsCountyHistory
Wabash Depot, built 1857, rail service discontinued 1934. Camp Point.

Wabash used the CB&Q route to access Quincy. For a few years, it used the depot of the CB&Q predecessor Quincy Omaha & Kansas City Ry. In 1903 it left the CB&Q on the north side and ran straight south down the middle 6th Street and then turned west to meet the CB&Q at Wabash Junction at about the latitude of Lock and Dam #21. Their new depot was by State Street. (SPV Map and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. Depots and Towers Illinois and Wisconsin Robert C. Brown, p. 166)

After spending more time than I care to admit looking at 1938 aerial photos trying to find the route, it finally occurred to me to "Google it." The line was abandoned in 1930. And for some reason that I don't understand, the route disappeared very quickly across the land at the north and south parts of town.The depot was on the southeast corner of 6th and York Streets (wabashrhs, search for "quincy"). The depot was designed by Theodore C. Link (RailroadStationHistoricalSociety).

Note the discrepancy in the sources concerning the State vs. York Street location