LS&BC
The
LaSalle and Bureau County
Railroad Company
LS&BC Baldwin S8 #8, LaSalle, IL
1970 Photo by Harold Vollrath
The
LaSalle and Bureau County Railroad Company operated 15 miles of track in north
central Illinois. The "Bee" (as it was called locally) was
founded in 1892 to provide a connection for the zinc mines of LaSalle, IL to
the neighboring railroads.
In
LaSalle, the LS&BC connected with the Illinois Central's "Gruber
Line" at Midway. The line then went west to a wye
(called Hegeler), where it connected with the
Streator-Zearing branch of the Chicago, Burlington
and Quincy, along with the DeKalb-Spring Valley branch of the Chicago and North
Western. The LS&BC then had to complete a "flatland
switchback" in order to gain access to the New York Central's Illinois
Division track (at Churchill), which provided the LS&BC with access to
Ladd, IL.
After
the Rock Island folded in the early 1980s, the LS&BC took over some of the
switching operations on the south side of Chicago. The LS&BC also
operated some former Milwaukee Road trackage around
Mendota after Milwaukee's retrenchment, but that service was eventually taken
over by the Burlington Northern.
Operations
at LaSalle lasted until 1986, at which time the ICG abandoned the Gruber Line,
stranding the LS&BC. The last day of operation was March 25, 1986.
The
name LS&BC ended when the name of the Chicago switching operation was
changed to Chicago Rail Link. The CRL exists to this day, as a part of
the OmniTRAX Inc.
group.
Questions,
comments or material that you would like to contribute? Contact me at joebartoli
at sbcglobal dot net.
Copyright
Notice: text © J. Bartoli, 2014, unless otherwise
noted. All photographs are Copyrighted by the individuals or organizations
identified with those photos.
Last
Modified 12/24/2014.
