VIRTUAL RAILWAY ARCHAEOLOGY.

Some years ago, I documented traces of the Chicago Great Western railroad, whose right of way is intertwined with the course of the Black Hawk War.

Modern farming methods obliterate hard-packed roadbeds, and if you build an airport on the site of an interchange, you can even hide the fact that two railroads crossed at different levels.

Once upon a time, the Chicago Great Western interchange office, and passenger station, should anybody want to detrain for Freeport and get a lift into town, looked like this.

Unattributed photograph purchased from Joiner Historical Collection, Sycamore Public Library.

That clump of trees has gotten bigger over the years, hasn't it?

To the west, the Chicago Great Western also jumped over The Milwaukee Road and Illinois Highway 26.

When I took that picture, I noticed the remnants of pilings in the creek and guessed that the two railroads crossed at grade.  In reality, the Chicago Great Western was on a pile trestle.  Recently, a commenter asked about an interchange with The Milwaukee Road at that location.  Look closely at this map, there clearly is a connecting track in the southeast quadrant of the intersecting railroads.  The comment also recommends an aerial photograph, there's a trace of the connecting track alongside the Chicago Great Western but that's mostly gone near the highway.

Unattributed photograph purchased from Joiner Historical Collection, Sycamore Public Library.

That's The Milwaukee Road in the foreground, facing southwest (fitting as it's the Racine and Southwestern line) with Highway 26 crossing the railroad and the creek, then the trestle.  That might be traces of the grade of the interchange track visible (change in color of the grass) on the other side of the trestle.

The mind boggles, though, at six-unit lashups of F units with over 100 cars going over that trestle once or twice a day.