I quess this is for anyone out there who knows anything about it. I am writing a novel in which steam engines and trains are featured. I need to know, if at all possible, what line ran regularly from Louisville to Chicago and back around that time. A freight train. What kind of engine would they use? How much tonnage could they pull? I'm pretty sure a stoker would have been used, but what were the duties of the fireman? Finally, if anyone can find out or tell me where to find out, which yard might they have pulled into when they arrived in Chicago?

My father was a fireman, starting with the L&N around 1920-24, and fired by hand. He told me it was still narrow guage when he was working. Later, he went to the D&RGW in Denver and was there when they went to diesel. Did some time on the Blue Eagle. During the war he was on the extra-board but worked quite regularly, and that was on steam.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

FFuller

The Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville (Monon); the Pennsylvania via Logansport; and the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific (Milwaukee Road) via Terre Haute.




The Monon favored 2-8-2s, the PRR 2-8-0s. Not sure what the Milwaukee used on their line.

MILW operated from Bensenville Yard in west Chicago; Monon probably used the Indiana Harbor Belt's Calumet City facility, and PRR used IHB's Tolleston yards as well as their own Englewood yards.

John,

Actually, I didn't think that the Milwaukee Road gained trackage rights to Louisville until the 1970s? I've seen the ad in the back of a old Trains Magazine announcing the event.

I believe the Milwaukee Road won the trackage rights to Louisville as a condition of the L&N/Monon merger.