Is this really true? Did the EJ&E ever run through this community? Or is this a way of selling the purchase of an incorrect and unhistorically accurate road's caboose to a un-knowing populace? I would hope that they, for instance, wouldn't be looking for a Southern F-Unit to "accurately" represent a Rock Island Geep?

T.J.

T. J.,
Shortly after the demise of the Rock Island, the EJ&E was the designated operator of the portion of the mainline from Joliet to Ottawa, I believe. They may have operated as far west as Bureau Jct, IL. Someone in the RITS can probably give you more information concerning that. Anyway, the EJ&E gave up the operation or was replaced by the Chessie, now the CSX. So, for a short period of time, EJ&E cabooses DID operate through Morris, IL. The "J" Goose Lake branch ends at a large chemical plant just east of Morris on U.S. 6 so there is still a fairly close tie between the "J" and Morris. Hope this helps.

Don C.

I'd certainly invite anybody in the neighborhood to go over and look at the Morris station. They took half of it and made it into the Chamber of Commerce office, and the other half is restored/community space, with some movable exhibits. The community did a marvelous job with a depot they really weren't quite sure what to do with at first. It's one of the best grassroots community movements to take an abandoned small depot and make it useful that I've worked with. That building was quite the wreck when they took it over.

Remember that Morris is just over the Grundy Co. line, and you can almost see the end of RTA service over at Minooka. They really wanted to keep the station site viable 'just in case' they want RTA service in the future into Grundy Co.

The "J" caboose is a really nice steel caboose in good shape, and since they didn't control the station at the time, they put it down on the canal property. They acquired the ex-RI station later, and since Day 1 the plan has been to move the caboose over to the depot site. They'd considered doing a full railroad museum, but there are probably enough of those aready in Illinois!

Personally, I'd love to see a Rock Island E unit on display, but nobody has donated one of those....

Relco has their shops and facilities a few miles away at Minooka, too, so that's how their donation of time and skill paid off. These folks at Morris really know how to get donations of all kinds of stuff done, let me tell you.

TJ,

The EJ&E is a whole lot closer to Morris than the Mopac ever came to Gaithersburg, MD where I saw an MP caboose on display this week.

Don, Kevin and Randy ---
Thanks for the insight and info --- not knowing the area, thought I should check before opening mouth and inserting foot. I guess I'm just tired of seeing groups buy "any old caboose" to put at a museum or park display, often expending a great deal of effort only to get a piece of equipment that never ran in their community, or even remotely near it, when with just a little more effort they could get one that might actually has a connection with the community.
I keep thinking of how many Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, etc. communties could take excellent care of those three truly unique wagon-top boxcars on Railswap now, but instead, have a Sante Fe caboose in their park or depot museum.

T.J.