Photo courtesy Ron Hatch Collection, by Kenneth C. Ziegler.

Victoria

     Victoria is like a thousand other Illinois farm towns, solid red brick buildings settled gently into an arbor surrounded by fields of crops. But if you stop a moment and quietly take it in, Victoria soon shows its texture and patterns. Like so many other farm towns, Victoria exists to support the lives of farmers in the nearby fields. They sow and till the black Illinois earth, wresting an agricultural bounty from the ground. The corn grows tall here, and this place yields a wealth which helps feed the world. As you sit and quietly look around, the town comes to life. People have made their lives here and prospered; many of their children and grandchildren have gone out into the world.

     On the south side of Victoria sits an empty building, worn with age, and it is this building which draws our attention. It is the remains of a railroad station, the home office of the Galesburg & Great Eastern. The railroad is long gone, but it has left faint wisps of its presence here and there. This station is the most obvious. People came to this place to make a life, to seek an opportunity yet undeveloped. We come here to tell its story. This is the G&GE's world.

Natural Resources

     This world has always been one of natural resources. The weather is a factor, with cold winters and hot summers, but the climate is favorable for growing crops. The most obvious resource is the rich black Illinois soil, a natural growing medium. Corn grows eight feet tall here, and not just because of fertilizer. This incredible dirt produces healthy strong plants, and this natural asset is still being used to this day.

     Below this layer of dirt is another layer of less rich soil; and below that are seams of coal. Here, the coal seam is called "Herrin No. 6". In earlier times, miners built shafts down to the coal seams, hand picking the coal and shovelling it into tram cars that would convey the coal to the surface. Underground mining is incredibly dangerous, with the constant possibility of collapse, fire and injury. No mining community is without a tale of tragedy, of people killed in the mines. Eighty miles away, at Cherry, Illinois, a disaster killed 273 men and boys who worked in a shaft mine. Yet without the coal, people who settled here could never survive the bitter Illinois winters.

     As mining technology advanced and the machines grew larger, strip mining became financially possible. This mining process removes the layers of dirt which cover the coal (called overburden), then extracts the coal. At first, this overburden was simply piled to one side and mining continued with the shovels moving in straight lines to the end of the mining company's property, turning and then returning back down this line, thoroughly removing the deposited coal. In later years, some effort was made to level out the piles of overburden, but regardless of method, the rich black Illinois soil had been mixed with the lesser dirt which was below. As a consequence, the corn does not grow eight feet tall in these areas, even with fertilizer.

     In earlier times, a common solution to the spoil pile problem was to let the gaps between the overburden piles fill with water and then turn the area into a sportsman's club for fishing and hunting. More recently, the overburden has been levelled and the area used for cattle feeding. But the educated eye can still see where the mines had operated, and it becomes obvious that not every farming family chose to let their land be mined. While some areas have been thoroughly strip mined, other areas are like a patchwork quilt of alternating fishing clubs and corn fields. Yet, below the corn fields there still remains the seam of Herrin No. 6.

The Railroad's Life

     The Galesburg & Great Eastern brought Victoria prosperity, and the railroad's character would change over the passing decades, often as a reflection of the larger world outside. This ten mile shortline started life connecting the farm and mining town of Etherly to the outside world at Wataga. There, the G&GE interchanged with the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (the CB&Q or Burlington). Etherly was to ultimately fade into the ethers, strip mined for the coal underneath and surpassed by the nearby growing town of Victoria. But Victoria was not an isolated place, and the railroad's role in Victoria was to change.

     Originally, the G&GE hauled both freight and passengers, charging riders the traditional 3 cents per mile; children rode at one half fare. The construction of Illinois Road 167 was to change that, with the passenger traffic dwindling away as more people chose to drive rather than ride the train. The train only ran a few times per day, yet the automobile was ready at any moment. This force was irresistible, and the G&GE soon became a freight only railroad. These same forces changed the freight traffic of the railroad, with farmers driving their crops to delivery rather than to use the G&GE. By the 1930's, the G&GE was moribund. Only the arrival of a coal mining operation would save the Galesburg & Great Eastern. And that, too, was to be temporary, extending the railroad's life only thirty more years to the early 1960's.

The Burlington

     No discussion of the Galesburg & Great Eastern can be complete without discussing this railroad's connection to the outside world, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. Without the "Q", the G&GE would have little reason to exist, for the Burlington allowed Victoria to deliver its goods to any place where there were steel rails. And, the Burlington delivered the world's goods to Victoria. Through a system of interchange, railroads exchanged freight cars that interconnected virtually all of the populated areas of the North American continent. As such, the Burlington was an important part of the G&GE's world.

     The relationship between these two railroads was largely cordial. We know that the G&GE bought several locomotives from the Burlington, and we know that the G&GE sometimes sent its locomotives to the Burlington's repair shops in nearby Galesburg; the Burlington had an established freight charge for the movement of G&GE locomotives over their rails to the 'Burg. A small portion of a G&GE locomotive can be seen in a photograph which appears in "Steam Locomotives of the Burlington Route", by Corbin and Kerka. And, the G&GE delivered many loads of coal to the Burlington which produced freight revenues for the Q. So, the relationship between the G&GE and the Burlington was symbiotic and mutually beneficial. Which is not to say that everything was always sunshine and light.

     In a study of Burlington correspondence for a period between the late 1800's and the early 1950's, it is apparent that there were occasional tensions between the two roads. Over this period of time, questions were raised about the G&GE's use of Burlington trackage and personnel at Wataga. At Wataga itself, things were usually friendly, but back at the Burlington's home office in Aurora, Illinois, at least one persistent auditor kept raising questions about the need for a station agent at Wataga. In earlier times, this agent had sold passenger tickets for the G&GE along with his other duties as the Burlington's representative in Wataga. After the G&GE became a freight only railroad, this agent still performed some duties on behalf of the G&GE, although what he did exactly is not presently clear. But this was enough for the auditor at Aurora, who would periodically issue memos concerning the costs of this agent's position. In response, a Burlington official would send another memo reminding everybody that the G&GE was a beneficial asset to the Burlington and that the agent's related costs were appropriate. The matter would then go away for several years, only to be raised again later. This process would repeat itself over the decades of the G&GE's operation.

     Another more complicated problem was that the Wataga car marshalling yard was a crowded place. Typical G&GE operations would bring in a train of loaded coal hoppers from the Little John Mine. These cars would be left for the Burlington to pick up. The G&GE would then go to another track and collect a group of empty coal hoppers for the return trip to the mine. Although it would have been possible to do this operation with two tracks, a third track made for easier operations. At the same time, the Burlington itself had freight operations in the town of Wataga, and the available yarding tracks were used for this purpose also. So, with only a few tracks available, and the twice-per-day exchange of cars by the G&GE, the Wataga freight yard was a busy place. In at least one of the memo exchanges between Galesburg and Aurora, local officials in Galesburg pointed out that the G&GE was often helpful to the Burlington by making freight car moves which facilitated the Burlington's operations, which helped to offset the costs of the Wataga agent's position.

     Everything had reached a point of equilibrium, for the Little John Mine could not produce more coal unless it added another shovel. There was little reason to add another shovel since the Burlington yard at Wataga could not handle more coal hoppers. The twice per day train from the mine to Wataga was the limit of what the systems could handle. At the Burlington end, freight service tended to be at night, with the railroad's main activity during the day being devoted to the silver passenger train fleet of Burlington Zephyrs and high priority freight trains. Even with dieselization, the G&GE would not handle additional freight trains since there was no place to put the cars once they got to Wataga. So, things stayed the same until the G&GE closed in 1960.

Railroad Technology

     Every generation has its defining technology, a development which fundamentally changes society. This fundamental change is so profound that popular culture quickly takes up this technology and adopts it with great enthusiasm. Consider today's computer technology; we are constantly seeking new ways to apply what we have discovered and adopted. In earlier times, such avidly adopted technologies included the airplane and the automobile. Before then, the railroad was ascendant. Steel wheel on steel rail allowed for unprecedented transportation efficiency.

     The railroad effected profound changes on the world. Vast distances were tamed. In the 1840's, crossing the North American continent was as daunting as travel to the moon is today. By the 1870's, railroads had conquered these great expanses, and with that came development and change. The country became stronger for it all. No community considered itself worthy unless it had railroad service, and towns that were bypassed by the railroads often withered on the vine. But with every technological leap, a mania seems to follow. And the railroad mania of the late 1800's in the United States would produce a glut of railroads, especially in the Midwest. This glut of railroads would very slowly be pared down to the physical plant of today's lines.

The Interstate Commerce Commission

   In part, this paring process was slowed considerably by the conservative presence of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which regulated almost all railroads in the United States. The ICC, in turn, had been formed after political pressure was exerted by railroad customers who had themselves been mistreated by the railroad companies. Virtually every aspect of the railroads' business was regulated by the ICC; rates, service, closures, construction, all were controlled by the ICC. Once this vast network of railroads had been built, the track structure of the US stayed largely in place because of the ICC.

     The nature of the ICC was covered well in an article in the Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2001. In a review of John Steel Gordon's book "The Business of America", reviewer John Lilly states:

     More typical is Mr. Gordon's evident enthusiasm for free and fair markets. In "R.I.P, ICC" he presents an unflattering obituary of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which ended its days in 1995, having "outlived the problem it was created to manage by several decades."

     That problem was 19th-century railroad freight rates, which could be intensely competitive on major "trunk" lines but virtually without competition on "branch" lines, where high rates made up for low money-losing ones elsewhere. To put an end to such "price gouging", the federal government set up the ICC. Soon, though, the railroads learned how to manipulate the agency, and politicians too, so that the ICC became a kind of broker for the railroad cartel, stripping away risk and ensuring "regulated" profits. In the 1930's, Mr. Gordon notes, trucking challenged the railroads' freight business, but the ICC simply moved over to regulate trucking.

     So, the ICC served to both insure regulated rate of return to the railroads and also removed elements of risk for the railroads. At the same time, peculiar inefficiencies creeped into the transportation system. Because freight moving between two points had an established tariff, choice of a particular railroad was not necessary. If two railroads operated between the same two cities, the tariff for that route was the same regardless of the operating company which hauled the freight. The tariff for that route was based upon the costs of transportation between those two points. An inefficient railroad had little incentive to become more efficient, since their rate of return on investment was already locked into the tariff.

     As a result, odd little railroad operations continued long after they should have been closed. One example was on the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis, in northern Alabama. This railroad did not have a direct route into Birmingham but, rather, ran trains from Tennessee to Huntsville, Alabama. There, the cars of freight were loaded onto a barge, which then sailed up the Tennessee River to Gunthersville, Alabama. Here the freight cars were unloaded back onto dry land, and another locomotive would then transport the freight for the balance of its journey. All freight rates between the points served by the NC&StL via this car ferry were the freight rates which all railroads charged shippers, even though their operations were likely quite more efficient.

     Because the G&GE was a branchline with no competition, it had fewer dealings with the ICC, yet the G&GE would still experience the conservative influence of the ICC. In 1939, the railroad applied to the ICC for permission to build a new rail line from Victoria to connect with the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific (the Rock Island) at nearby La Fayette. Railroad freight is a matter of moving a ton of freight one mile for a fee, and in that era, the Central Indiana Coal Company, operator of the mine at Victoria, apparently had a coal purchaser located in an area which would have been conveniently and more cheaply served by the construction of this new line. Coal traffic would have gone from their mine on the G&GE to La Fayette and then been transported by the Rock Island to the coal buyer's facility. Coal traffic going to Wataga and then to the same coal customer via the CB&Q would have cost more, making the coal's price higher to cover the shipping costs. In today's unregulated railroad environment, this project would have simply been a matter of financial analysis which would decide if such a project would be profitable. That was not the case in 1939.

     The ICC served the purposes of its creators very well indeed, throttling back the rapid development of the new railroad technology in the late 1800's, reining in the robber barons of the tabloid newspaper fame. Indeed, the ICC was so efficient at its mission that by the 1940's, it had regulated and controlled virtually every aspect of railroad and trucking line business into a fixed state. No new development occurred without the permission of the ICC, and the transportation system reflected that fact.

     The ICC moved at a snail's pace, which suited Congress and the freight shippers, and the Galesburg & Great Eastern application to build a seven mile railroad line took almost two years to work its way through a series of hearings. The application process alone took months; in pre-computer days, the ICC prepared reports on manual typewriters using information which was painstakingly copied from other paper files. The application to build this seven mile railroad consisted of reams of paper reports devoted to coal traffic in the United States, coal traffic in Illinois, freight traffic on the G&GE, the surrounding railroads and also several trucking companies which hauled freight in the vicinity. Not surprisingly, the ICC would ultimately turn down the Galesburg & Great Eastern's application to build this seven mile branch line.

     Of course, there is an ironic conclusion to this anecdote. The G&GE closed in 1961, when the coal mining company's mineral resources were exhausted. Much of the equipment of the railroad moved on to other company owned mines in other locations. Across County Road 15 from Central Indiana's exhausted coal mines, another mining company began operation a few years later, and the mined coal was transported to buyers on a railroad that had been built to La Fayette, following the same route which the G&GE had sought to build. In a few more years, the Rock Island Railroad was also history, part of a larger change in how we allocate our transportation resources. Now isolated, this mine closed and the connecting railroad line was scrapped.

Competing Transportation Modes

   At the same time as the G&GE's application to the ICC, other fundamental changes were taking place in the transportation sector. Highway construction, which would culminate with the Interstate Highway System, made automobile travel considerably easier, allowing farmers to haul their produce to market without the need of the railroad. Long distance automobile travel combined with Federal support of airplane travel made the railroad passenger train virtually unnecessary. While the railroads built and maintained their own rights of way, truckers drove on heavily subsidized highways, and the airplane received its own set of subsidies. When the U.S. Postal Service transferred its mail hauling contracts away from the railroads and toward the truck and airplane, the passenger train died. It was in this environment that the Galesburg & Great Eastern operated. In its early days, the G&GE was a grand adventure, a mark of accomplishment for Victoria, Illinois. Had not the coal mine opened south of Victoria, it is likely that the G&GE would have died sooner. When the mine closed in late 1960, the G&GE was destined to close too.

People

     The Galesburg & Great Eastern was not just locomotives and track, but a place where people made their lives. Victoria was founded in 1847, by a group of settlers who moved there from Canton, IL. They came to this place searching for opportunity, motivated by hunger; countless people immigrated to the United States from Europe because of famine. The Irish potato famine is well known, but the same disease struck crops in Scandinavia, too. And the fertile ground around Victoria would be home to those who sought the chance to make a new life. The Victoria cemetery has the graves of these people and their successors, people a long distance from their heritage who had made this locale their place in the world.

     The early years were marked by family farming, people living there to grow enough food to simply survive. Yet the fertile Illinois soil would allow them to not merely subsist but to thrive. Eventually, it became possible to ship farm crops to other places, and our little railroad was born. It soon became possible for these farm families to travel, and they did so on the G&GE, another opportunity. As time passed and machines improved, the farms grew larger, with people opening shops to support the farming community. In the early days, the coal mines in the area existed to simply serve the community, and largely operated only as necessary during the winter months. They were crude affairs, just enough to eke out the coal needed by people in the vicinity. They were to grow in size as technology expanded, too.

     The Sherwood family, owners of the mine and the railroad, came to Victoria to make money, but along the way, they would gain in other ways, too. To quote the grandson of the mine's owner, Robert H. Sherwood:

     You can see, even after 33 years when I last worked for the coal company, it never got out of my blood. The age of coal and steam rail were for me a romantic period. As a boy I used to sit for hours and thrill at the passing of steam locomotives at the mine. Of course I was in a fortunate position as my family owned not only coal mines but a railroad. I have many fond memories of the G&GE.

     The photo of the "roundhouse gang" really brought back a flood of memories. I remember as a 10 or 11 year old going to the roundhouse with my father. It was on the evening shift. The men with their overalls and long spouted oilers under the lights tending to the locomotives was a sight that I will never forget. To the men I was "Sam's son" and like my father, who had the business passed to him by his father, it was always assumed that I would in 20-30 years be running the coal company. Alas, the coal companies were sold, one by one, and by 1983, on my 40th birthday the last mine passed into history......

 ......My grandfather R.Hartley Sherwood, later president of the G&GE, worked as a young man as a supervisor for the Erie Railroad, and he with his father worked later on several rail construction projects in various locations (including Canada) at the turn of the century (last century!!) in an engineering capacity. Other members of the family held considerable interests in railroads, including the Erie. It was the use of rail mounted steam shovels in their work making cuts for rail lines that inspired the family to finance and operate their strip coal mining ventures.

     The first "Sherwood" mine was opened in Danville Illinois in 1914. It was equipped with a 1 cy [cubic yard] bucket steam shovel. A machine had never been built so large before by the Marion company! Soon we were loading coal from the pits by rail and steam dinky, instead of by mule. The development of the Little John mine, and the purchase of the G&GE were one of the high points in our family's business efforts.

     And, it was the grandson of another person that was touched by the Galesburg & Great Eastern who brought many interesting photographs to this website. Ken Naslund's grandfather Kenneth Ziegler had thought so much of the G&GE that he photographed it. Although some of the photographs are of machines, the most interesting are the photos of the G&GE's people. The Galesburg & Great Eastern made a difference in people's lives, and its passing has not been forgotten. The environmental impact of this railroad's operations are offset by the benefit which accrued to society because of it. We are all fortunate for this.

     The study of railroad technology developments gives one an appreciation for other technological developments. Consider computer technology. Gone are Commodore Computers, CP/M is an archaic memory, hundreds of dot coms come and go so quickly. For the Galesburg & Great Eastern, there are a few tangible traces left, such as the station building at Victoria. And the faded memories offered by these collected photographs of a happier time when a railroad could call itself "Great".