Part of my backyard layout is a portion of the old Louisville & Nashville rail line that used to run between Evansville, Indiana, and St Louis, MO… This line no longer runs into St Louis, but deadends at a town called Okawville, Illinois… I am a member of their Yahoo group site, (amung others), and try and stay tunred into the operations along the line. One of the major items of trackwork that is being done, is the building of an interchange track from the Evansville Western RR (EVWR), and the Norfolk Southern RR (NS), just east of Mount Vernon, Illinois… Below are some pictures of that work being done… The below picture is looking southerly towards the EVWR mainline, that runs along the treeline in the background.
this picture is just a little closer look at the rails & ties…
the below picture is looking northerly, across the roadway, where roadbed has not been built yet, in the foreground.
Below is the same look, except a little more straight on shot with the track
this shot below, is a wide shot, looking northerly again, towards the Norfolk Southern tracks… The junction with the Norfolk Southern is basically a “Y” junction, allowing trains to run either east or west.
This below picture shows a few of the ties yet to be used…
This is the ““wet”” time of the year here, so work has somewhat come to a halt… doesn’t look to me like anything has changed in the past month… From what I understand from information from the rail groups, this interchange between the EVWR and the NS is for unit coal trains…