EFfingham RailRoad

[Mr Fixit]

Hi all,
I decided that today is the day to start my layout blog, seeing that its also my birthday and I have the week off work, so why not talk about my model railroad ambitions.

My plan and my activities so far have been directed towards making a HO scale model of the EFfingham RailRoad, Effingham, Illinois, USA.

Firstly a mud map to help everyone locate where I am talking about;http://efrr.com/EFRR%20Site%20Layout.pdf



Okay so at this point I havent managed to make the map appear but I will continue with my introduction.

Around four years ago, the German supermarket chain ALDI which had only recently set up in Australia, had a special on Bachmann HO train sets, and extender sets. So despite being short of money I bought two sets and two extender sets, then the next year I bought another set as well. My thinking was that the sets were affordable and they would be a good way to intoduce my now six year old son to model trains. I was right. You should have seen him the day I first got the freight train set out. I will write a separate piece about that day another time. Anyway, I started frequenting the local hobby shop about three years ago, and on one trip I bought the Bachmann E-Z Model Railroads E-Z track planning guide and layout book, item #99978.

A very good read I must say, but what really tickled my fancy was the 'Timesaver' layout all done in E-Z track. Now it just so happened that around this time at work we had numerous offcuts of 18mm ply [3/4"] that were 2400 x 300, so with permission, I "liberated" one and painted it black. I could now with some additional track purchases set up a "Timesaver".

[Herc Driver]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

So what's up with the layout?

[Mr Fixit]

Thanks Mark for the Birthday wishes, Im just trying to continue with the introduction.
You get to throw a Herc about the sky!!! Cooooool
Mark

Somewhere around this time I also decided to Google 'Timesaver" and see what I could find. What a find, I found articles on the history of "Timesaver" and its designer John Allen [dec.], and I also found a website dedicated to model railroad or railway switching puzzles by Alex Wyman. It was on his site that I found descriptions of prototype railroads that resembled "Timesaver". It was here that I discovered the EFfingham RailRoad, only 4 miles long and with a SW1200 for road power [good], and then I saw that it had a Krispy Kreme plant.

"This is the Homer Simpson of shortlines" I yelled, "I just have to model this railroad".

I mean how many shortlines or other railroads for that matter that have [or had]their own donut factory on site as a rail served facility? None I'll bet. and so began my researching of the EFRR and its various customers including KK, while I dreampt of where I could fit this shortline as a layout.

Mark

[Puddlejumper]

http://www.efrr.com/EFRR%20Site%20Layout.pdf

Clickable link. Looks like fun.

[BR60103]

Dave: I can't do anything with the image your link brings up except turn it completely black!

I took this picture last year in San Diego -- one of John Allen's original timesavers (#2).
   
   

[Mr Fixit]

Thanks for posting the photo Dave.

Mark

[FCIN]

Here's a little info that I've gathered about the EFRR

Effingham Railroad (EFRR 288) started operations in mid/late 1996 using the existing 206 foot "Beer Track" at the Effingham Industrial Park. How's that for a railroad you could model in its entirety! A 206 foot spur with one tiny structure - the TQW crossdock! Within about 8 years, the EFRR constructed a total of about 3 miles of new track along and within the industrial park.

Initial customers on the EFRR were Total Quality Warehouse (TQW), Mid Illinois Concrete, Bunge Foods, Irving Paper, Fraser Paper, Pactiv (food packaging products such as Hefty Bags), and Stevens Industries. I assume that Irving, Fraser, Pactiv and Stevens all receive their shipments at the TQW warehouse. Primary commodities hauled by the EFRR were/are: crushed stone, printing paper, lumber, particle board, wheat flour and vegetable oil. They may also now receive some steel and TQW is set up to handle cold storage.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts constructed their facility on EFRR in 2002. Plant was shut down effective Dec 20, 2007 - but sold to Harlan Bakeries of Avon, Indiana. Bunge Foods is no longer located on the line, but that facility has been taken over by Hodgson Mill. Harlan and Hodgson are the only customers, other than TQW, that have their own spurs.

On my last trip by the EFRR (June 25, 2010) it appeared that some of the track was being used for car storage, mostly tank cars. There were a couple of covered hoppers outside the Harlan Bakeries plant and of course couldn't see what may have been inside the TQW warehouse as the rail doors were closed. Nothing at Hodgson Mill. The conveyors used for unloading rock by Mid-Illinois Concrete were stored by the TQW crossdock and didn't appear to have been used in quite some time. There were several cars sitting at the CSXT interchange point, tank cars and covered hoppers, which I hope were either coming on line or moving off line from EFRR customers. Also some cars at the CN/IC interchange on the south end of the line. It's an interesting operation and nice to see a "new" railroad in this era. Small short line/switching railroads like the EFRR are my thing! The smaller the better.

I hope that at some point, they can get their Illinois Western http://www.illwestern.com/ operation going too, but doesn't look promising for now, as the proposed industrial park in Greenville only has two facilities - only one of which can receive rail cars (United Stationers Supply).

The entire ILW line currently consists of a 2400 foot spur with a switch to nowhere located about midpoint on the spur. Google Map: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=38.88...5&t=h&z=17. On this trip, I also stopped by the Vandalia Railroad and the ILW. Nothing at all on the ILW and no indication that the spur is being used. Note that when the aerial view was taken, there were two cabs at the end of the spur - but the spur was clear when I checked it out last year. No sign of the ILW Geep which had been at Effingham a year or so earlier.

The ILW web site used to have a good map of the proposed industrial park and rail line running from Greenville along US 40 to a proposed connection with BNSF, but now only shows an aerial view of the proposed development. Would also make for an interesting industrial railroad with two connecting lines and who knows what industries.

Charlie Barenfanger, President of the EFRR and ILW originally operated the nearby Vandalia Railroad, before selling the line to Pioneer Rail Corp.

Off Topic: Regarding problem with PDF files. David, are you using Firefox? I've been having problems with it displaying PDF files the past day or so for some reason. Usually end up with either just a black or white screen. Don't have that problem using Safari or Chrome and no updates to Firefox. Weird....

[Mr Fixit]

Thanks for all that information Ed.
I knew most of it, but you still cant beat a Mark One eyeball, with or without camera, checking things out on the ground.
I am surprised that those wheeled conveyors where used for crushed rock, especially given the size of some of those piles of crush that I have seen in photos. I know they list a separate Mid-Illinois Concrete Dump Pit as a location and I just assumed that a heavy industrial type conveyor belt system was in place to feed through to the large unit within Mid-Ill. Concrete.
I think that I may also have read that one unit [possibly EFRR 2716] is fitted for Remote Control Operation.
I suspect that both EFRR 2716 and IW 7570 are being housed inside TQW for safety and security particularly in winter.
Why build an Engine shed when you can just as easily park inside a drive thru warehouse?
Mark

[FCIN]

Mark;

Would agree with you that ILW 7570 is probably being kept in the TQW warehouse too, since it's no longer just sitting on the ILW spur in Greenville, like it did for a year or so. I photographed that unit in its original paint scheme, both at Greenville and at Effingham. At Effingham, it was usually sitting at the end of the Bunge track, along with a passenger car.

Pretty sure that EFRR 2716 is set up for remote control and ILW 7570 may be too. Remote control on an operation like the EFRR would be the way to go.

There is no "permanent" conveyor at the Mid-Illinois pit and when I was there in June, didn't seem to be much going on at the concrete plant. Some activity, but not a lot. No really large piles of rock either. I suspect that the photos you see on the EFRR web site showing the train of hoppers, was probably a once or twice event and they probably don't get much rock in by rail right now.

Hopefully, things will pick up for them once the economy turns around. It's hurting all the small railroads.

[Mr Fixit]

Thanks for the extra information Ed.

ILW7570 has spent most of the '00s at EFRR in both its original ILW paint job and in its newer EFRR themed paint job. In fact I have located photos at rrpicturesarchive that show it freshly painted [EFRR phase 2] and then a month later completely lettered and signed for Illinois Western. Most of the photos show ILW 7570 parked on the Bunge/Hodgson mill siding.

Bunge/Hodgson Mill story;

Bunge arranged for the building of that building with the express intention of using the facility to unload bulk quantities of cooking oil[s], so that they could then repackage it into smaller commercial and domestic retail containers. The only trouble was that there was an over supply of such product in the marketplace, and additionally Bunge was cutting into the market of some of their bulk customers, so the decision was made to sell the business to one of their bulk customers and close the plant. Someone obviously didnt do a very good job of a S.W.O.T. analysis prior to making the investment in the plant. S.W.O.T. stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats and is a pretty basic Business 101 requirement, so the best way to sum up is and for good measure.

Hodgson Mill then came along and set up in the vacated building, producing wholesome stone ground bread mixes and the like and in fact business was so good that they doubled the size of the plant. They have also recently installed some wind turbines on the roof of the silo tower as part of their enviromental program.

This then means that during the Krispy Kreme era 2002 to 2007 we had the unusual situation of one plant producing wholesome stone ground "health food" type products and another plant in the business park producing "junk food" product at the other end of the food spectrum. Both plants were rail served.

Interestingly Agracel also built, in much secrecy, a Coca-Cola bottling plant elsewhere in Southern Illinois. Damn shame it wasnt on the EFRR business park then we would have been really set.

Mark

[Mr Fixit]

I was just sitting at my computer contemplating writing another post and reading my previous post when I started to really study our favourite smile

Now is it just me or does the horizontal bar linking the driving wheels appear to be rotating in the wrong direction in relation to the direction the locomotive is facing and obviously travelling given the smoke plume?

The link bar is rotating in a clockwise direction when it should actually be rotating in an anti clockwise direction.
Doh

Mark

[lears2005]

Yep you are right

[ngauger]

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

We've been telling everyone that the engines are going backwards in a high wind The wind is blowing the smoke "backwards too"

But yeah, we know........ It's a "Big Blue" thing

[tomustang]

I fixed that gif but the guys don't want to replace it

[ngauger]

I fixed that gif but the guys don't want to replace it

Was that after we moved????? We can replace it now.. we're running the place We lost a lot of stuff when we moved.