Peoria Station

When the following appeared in the Heart of Illinois Sierra Club’s newsletter, Tallgrass Sierran, it left me scratching my head: Amtrak’s fight for life: With high gas prices, a greenhouse gas conscience nation, and demand for reducing America’s oil dependency, on might think increasing rail services of Amtrak would be a win-win for the public, [...]

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  From Saturday’s Journal Star:   “I don’t know of the park district or anyone else that is sitting on $18 million,” Mayor Jim Ardis said Thursday. “To say it is feasible at that price tag is questionable.”   Park District Executive Director Bonnie Noble agrees. The park district has a little more than $4 [...]

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From the official website of the Illinois Prairie Railroad Foundation: Vonachen’s Old Place has closed. On Saturday, October 25th at 10:00 a.m. we are going to be allowed to go into the Junction City cars and take pictures to our heart’s content. The final disposition of these cars is unknown so be sure to take [...]

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I blogged about this eight days ago. Sure enough, the long-awaited study conducted by engineering firm T. Y. Lin International is now complete and will be discussed by the Peoria City Council at their next meeting, Tuesday, October 28. The study’s conclusion: This more detailed, but still cursory, review of the 2007 ‘estimate of probable cost’ [...]

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I haven’t had time to do any blogging for a few days, but I should have a few posts up before the end of the week. These will be regarding an Illinois Prairie Railroad Foundation event this Saturday, Iowa Interstate Railroad’s “Steam Train Ride for Flood Relief” (Quad Cities) and some analysis of The Heart of Illinois [...]

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At the groundbreaking ceremony for the new terminal at the General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport, Director Ken Spirito mentioned the possibility of obtaining international charter flights. Peoria has already had them; via American Trans Air to London, England and Nassau, Bahamas in the late 1980’s. So what possible international charter destinations could be [...]

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All is quiet on the Kellar Branch front. I thought the City of Peoria and Village of Peoria Heights were supposed to obtain T. Y. Lin’s engineering and feasibility study for a joint-use railroad and recreational trail right of way last August. It’s October now and I haven’t heard a thing. Perhaps there’s a delay? [...]

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  At a ceremony that began at 11:00 this morning, the Greater Peoria Regional Airport officially became the “General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport.” A new sign positioned in front of the old one along the airport entrance road already displayed the new name as attendees arrived. Some interesting tidbits from today’s ceremony (which I [...]

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The groundbreaking ceremony for the new terminal and renaming of the airport in honor of General Wayne Downing will take place Friday, October 10 at 11:00am. – David P. Jordan

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I always get a kick out of some silly terminology used by local print media regarding aviation. Case in point: Central Illinoisans can take a glimpse into the life of a World War II B-17G flight crew, as one of the few working aircrafts left makes a weekend stop at Byerly Aviation, a charter plane [...]

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