Picture of the Illinois Central Railroad in the company created town, Centralia, Illinois in 1910.
Centralia is about 19 miles southeast of Carlyle on the old Illinois Central Mainline. About the time of this picture, immediately south of Centralia was the location of the largest roundhouse in the World. Parts of that still exist, today.
Nice shot Ric. I like local history. Lots of good steam, but no diesels. Hum :rolleyes:
Wow,
Look at all that smoke…
Ralph
The more I look at that picture, the less it looks like a picture and more like a drawing or sketch. What do you think?
Ric,
Looks like a photo to me. But even back then, some photos were retouched.
Its a very good drawing , and thanks for shareing it .
My close analysis (zoom-in) reveals the following…
The picture was printed in a newspaper. You can see reverse text in the upper portion of the sky. The tender numbers 1914 and 718 were probably added later. The fuzzy smoke and steam plumes are probably the result of a long exposure.
I think there is too much detail for a drawing or painting. I’d say it is a photo and the quality is poor since it was scanned from a newspaper clipping.
Yes, I don’t doubt it came from a newspaper article. I copied it from a “Southern Illinois Yahoo Group” posting. I’ve been trying to figure out from where was it taken and directions. In the upper left hand side of the photo you can what might be part of the above mentioned roundhouse. Post card pictures that I have seen of it, shows it to be a structure much like the one on the B&O in Baltimore. It was eventually a full round structure, with a rotunda top. I don’t know if this was before the structure or after. As I said there is a few stalls of the old original roundhouse structure, still standing and they don’t look extremely different from what is shown. I’m guessing the photo is taken from the south on a tower, looking north up the tracks. There is no viaduct or anything like that in the area and this is in flat prairie country. I feel there may have been a large concrete coaling tower on the south end of the yards. Maybe that is where the picture was taken. Looks like a sand facility, right center.
The CB&Q had, and still has, a mainline running parallel to the IC through Centralia and the M&I (Mike and Ike - Missouri and Illinois, Mopac, later Union Pacific) also went through from southwest to northeast. Southern also came through from the west, paralleled the IC main and head out to the south east. It was and still is quite a busy spot.
Im thinking the two tall stacks should be a good marker. I agree that there seems to be a roundhouse to the left and ahead there is a sand facility, also appears to be a series of three ashpits that the crane looks to be clearing out. Judging from the directions of what seem to be egine service tracks Id say its a good bet that the photographer was standing on some sort of coal facility. Any sort of ICC valuation maps availible?
Interesting. South of town is the round house you mention.
(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/thejoat/_forumfiles/SouthofTown.jpg)
When I first zoomed in on Centralia, I went north of town and found this area. I originally thought that this was the round house ruins you had mentioned.
(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/thejoat/_forumfiles/NorthofTown.jpg)
I really can’t pick out much…
Boy I can Bruce…neat stuff
Bruce, I might be wrong, but I do believe at one time, there was a large freight yard and roundhouse at the location shown in that second picture… Of course, that would have been quite a few years ago…
Neat stuff!!
Bruce,
The round house pattern in the second picture is the “Q’s”.
The first picture’s round house was the Illinois Central’s. It sits immediately south of Centralia in the community of Wamac. Wamac was created by the IC when the Fathers of Centralia decided to try and blackmail the IC when they needed to expand around the 1870’s. They felt that the original IC created community was now important enough that the IC would pay a bigger price for land for expansion within the city. WRONG, the IC went immediately outside the southern boundary of Centralia and incorporated Wamac, named for WAshington, MArion and Clinton counties, since the property in question straddled all three counties. Throughout the history of Centralia, the town’s fathers have lost pissing contests to the railroads, but they never seem to learn.
Right now the battle is over a proposed railroad crossing/overpass on the Southern, now Norfolk Southern, south of town. Always interesting politics to watch.
As the worm turns.
Hmmm neither roundhouse location really fits what we see in the b&w picture. The roundhous is off to the lefthand side of the facilities not dominating the middle the Q location doesnt seem to orient right either…
I keep coming back to this picture to figure out what shows.
I think that with the haze in the middle of the pic it’s hard to make out the roundhouse doors dead ahead of the ashpits. Even the (hard to be sure) 2 section roof outline just to the right of the crane.It might line up with Bruces’ first shot. 
(http://www.usgwarchives.org/il/marion/postcards/icshop.jpg)
More a drwing on a postcard, but mebbe some ideas…
(http://www.blet602.org/602Photos/Album_2/icCentralia-IL.jpg)
The coal docks mebbe the photographer was standing on?
