Forgotten Lands, Places and Transit

In the hierarchy of road systems in the United States, state highways would usually be considered third, behind the Interstate Highway System and the United States Numbered Highway System . Numbered State Highways by their definition exist within their state only. Illinois Route 53 is a completely different route than Indiana Route 53 , for example. Occasionally, a number from one state will continue onto another state highway, a great example of this would be Route 200, which begins as Idaho Route 200 , becomes Montana Route 200 , which becomes North Dakota Route 200 , and finally Minnesota Route 200 . Each of these routes exist within its home state highway network. But in unusual circumstances, a state highway as part of its own highway network, can cut into another state briefly, and these are the highways we're going to talk about today. 1) New York Route 17 Route 17, known throughout much of the state as the Southern Tier Expressway , is the much earlier number for the ...

Keeping up with the recent past regarding blogs, here's our trip to the East Troy Railroad Museum on June 6th of last year! East Troy, WI was the westernmost stop on the electric railway from Milwaukee, known as the  Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company . Electric railway history in East Troy, WI dates back to nearly the turn of the 20th century in 1907, when electric railway building was booming across much of the United States, but especially in the urbanized sections of the Northeast, Midwest and Western US. Using electric motive power, this disorganized system nonetheless allowed commuters to connect to a major city from rural areas, and even inter-city connections via both steam and electric railways.  A post card I picked up from the museum of the East Troy Museum Car #24. In Milwaukee's case, one could hop on to the MER&L Railway from East Troy and connect to Milwaukee. From there, you could connect to the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad ...

Guest blogger Alain Bernier has provided us with more history in his area of expertise in Northern Quebec, this time with a mining village that was known as Pascalis, which was sadly almost entirely destroyed in a 1944 forest fire. Hope you enjoy today's blog as always! Pascalis QC : A village gone up in smoke © Alain Bernier 2021  The discovery of gold in the 1910’s along the Cadillac mineralized fault in the Abitibi region of  the province of Quebec, Canada, drew thousands of people to the then unpopulated area straddling the Cadillac mineralized fault. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, settlements, hamlets, and villages were popping up all along the mineralized fault wherever gold was found.  The Pascalis township was such a place. The area was rich in gold deposits and soon 4 mines were in operation: Beaufor, Vicour, Cournor and Perron-Pascalis. A village of squatters named Perron developed and housed the miners.   The Beaufor Mine near Pascalis, 1927 The Vicour Min...

While the State of Iowa as a whole may not be considered a hilly state, the same cannot be said for the City of Dubuque , which is located on the Mississippi River across from both Illinois and Wisconsin. The hills of the area offer a great location for a unique attraction: The Fenelon Place Elevator Company , which first operated under horse power in 1882. Top to bottom, the funicular railway is 189 feet tall and 296 feet long. We visited the elevator during a stop in Dubuque a few years back and decided it's finally time to shed a little light on this unique and interesting place! It is quite short, and quite steep, although I'm unsure if the website's claims of being the shortest and steepest scenic railway are truly accurate. I've been on one other funicular in my lifetime, the other one being the  Orient Express at Six Flags Magic Mountain, now known as the "Honda Express". This one has far better views and is much steeper, although the Magic Mountain o...

The Jupiter & Lake Worth Railway is one of the more obscure railways that ran in the state of Florida, and its short length of less than eight miles is the kind of railroad we try to focus on here.  Dave Hazzard wanted to examine further its nickname, the "Celestial Railroad". While we typically don't deal with discussions on nickname etymology among short-line railroads, and many times they're simply a derisive form of the line's initials, this one is a little more interesting. The following comes from Hazzard. "the naming of the town of Jupiter, Florida had long since come about through a misunderstanding of the way Spanish documents spelled “Hobe”, the name of the indigenous Native tribe. As is usually the case in Español, ‘J’ replaces ‘H’, making for a spelling of “Jobe”. Evidently a late 1700s mapmaker further mistook the ‘b’ for a ‘v’, resulting in “Jove”. Well, Jove is another name for the Roman god, Jupiter. And that’s how that purportedly happen...

Do you want to run a railway, but can't afford a steam engine? Do you have 2-4 horses? Well, have we got a solution for you! The Impulsoria was a locomotive constructed in 1850 that was powered by horses on a treadmill following a design by Clemente Masserano . The locomotive came at a time when steam engines had been state-of-the-art technology for at least two decades, but when some railways still used horse power, and there was at least some debate as to whether the technology of steam was worth the cost. Thus, the locomotive was sort of a hybrid design that could satisfy these customers, at least that was the idea behind the patent. The locomotive undertook trials in London in 1850 and was exhibited at The Great Exhibition in 1851. It was a 2-2-0 Engine design. Impulsoria Illustration. British Newspaper Archive A maximum of four horses could be used in the design, but in most of the illustrations I've seen of it, only two horses are shown. One illustration showing four ho...

Long story short: probably not.  But its been a local legend for well over a century, that there exists in the mud between Western Springs and Hinsdale an abandoned Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad locomotive, that was buried under the tracks during the construction of the line over 150 years ago. The Western Springs Historical Society dubs it " The Little Lost Train ". 1880’s era train at Stone Avenue Station.  (Western Springs Historical Society) And the legend has renewed interest, giving the ongoing roadwork on the Tri-State Tollway  (I-294) which has required BNSF to construct a temporary bridge over the Interstate. A simple diagram of the construction is posted below from the Illinois Tollway . Riders of Metra's BNSF Line will be quite familiar with the project already. The new bridge will be just south of where the current bridge exists, and moved back once construction on the Tri-State is completed, and an additional storage track will be part of the fi...

 This tower might seem unassuming enough, but one can't help but wonder why it was built? View from the Veterans Memorial Trail, adjacent to I-355. (May, 2019) Located in Keepataw Forest Preserve (just west of Lemont, IL), this is one of the few remaining remnants of the land's past. Long before it a forest preserve, it was one of the many limestone quarries in proximity to the Des Plaines River.  The chimney was part of a kiln, which is essentially an oven capable of temperatures sufficient to produce chemical changes in metals, according to the Historical Document Record of the Keepataw Site. "The separate feed kiln type, which by 1905 was said to be "used at most of the larger lime-burning plants," comprised a wide variety of patent kilns. In general, these kilns, rising 25 to 35 feet, were taller than the mixed feed kilns. Most were sheathed in steel or iron and lined with fire brick, although some were constructed of stone. The limestone was charged from t...