Grand Trunk 5857 and a mate get the signal at MI, Mt. Pulaski, as they begin to head back north to Clinton, Illinois to pick up there train. The previous days Farmersville Coal loads sits in the c... (more)

On Halloween Sunday, Oct 31, Norfolk Southern PR43C 4001, A Progress Rail unit, leads the D46D into the Tazewell & Peoria Railroad yards in East Peoria, Illinois. STEVE SMEDLEY PHOTO

Wisconsin Northern Railway builds a train of frac sand while working at New Auburn, Wisconsin the day after Christmas, 2013. Steve Smedley

With a full moon rising in the eastern sky, the CNIC engineer on BNSF 8975, an SD70MAC AC, walks to the cab after putting together the Heyworth Grain train on Tuesday March 25, 2008. The CNIC crew... (more)

Norfolk Southern's two PR43C units, 4000-4001, the first on the roster, rest at Good Yard in Normal, Illinois on Saturday Oct. 16, 2010. NS, along with builder Progress Rail, recently announced a... (more)

Peoria & Western Railway uses six locomotives to pull a 52 car cut of coal onto the Ameren Spur at Rawalts, as the loaded coal train heads for the Duck Creek Power Generating Station at Dunfermli... (more)

A Union Pacific Railroad special heads south through McLean, Illinois and over former Gulf, Mobile & Ohio trackage on Tuesday Oct. 2, 2007. The train ran with the symbol SCHSL02. Brand new ES44AC ... (more)

Keokuk Junction Railway's 2018 West is the flip side of the Keokuk Job begining its roll west towards LaHarpe and then its home base of Keokuk, Iowa, as the Eastbound Canton Cannonball waits for t... (more)

Illinois & Midland 43 brings its interchange train across the Illinois River lift bridge at Peoria on Saturday afternoon

I chased the BUSW back west thinking she'd be struggling with the loading. Here the ''non-wavers'' crew is passing what is left of the depot in Depue. STEVE SMEDLEY PHOTO

Manufacturers Railway Company SW 1500 # 255 works to load grain cars, at the Tr-City Regional Port District Mid-Coast Terminal on Saturday, April 23, 2008. The towboat Ernie T. Wellhausen is in fo... (more)

The newest arrival at the Monticello Railway Museum is former Chicago & Illinois Midland, then Illinois & Midland RS1325 31, being shoved towards the diesel house on Museum grounds. The locomotiv... (more)

Engineer Dave Allenson has a nice leader on the point, as he operates a loaded grain train through a dense area of grade crossings buildings and utilities in Pekin, Illinois. The CNIC grain loads ... (more)

The Canton Cannonball heads westward into another snowfall on Monday morning. STEVE SMEDLEY PHOTO

My Thursday off work began with the I&M 60 heading south for Havana with a handful of cars. The railroad has replaced several trestles and culverts, along with cleaning out the ditch between Power... (more)