Peoria Station

PEORIA – Below is a list, albeit not 100% accurate, showing customers of the Peoria & Pekin Union Railway for the year 1982:

 (1) Customers formerly served by the Rock Island or Peoria Terminal Railroads.

Nine customers listed above were gained when P&PU assumed “directed service” on trackage owned by bankrupt Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and Peoria Terminal. P&PU purchased PT’s Pekin trackage in August 1981 and five miles of Rock Island trackage from downtown Peoria to the Water Works in September 1983. Trackage north of there up to Mossville was leased until purchased by BF Goodrich in 1985.

I’ve added Peoria Brick & Tile Co. as a customer, though I can’t confirm when they started leasing space in P&PU’s Creve Coeur freight house. Peoria Brick & Tile ceased manufacturing in 1982 and became a wholesaler of bricks, so it’s likely to have begun taking rail deliveries around that time. I also included Little Giant Products, even though I can’t confirm their use of rail transportation at that late date (Little Giant closed in January 1983). Celotex Corp closed its Clarke St. plant in January 1982. I’ve uncovered evidence that the Greater Peoria Sanitary District continued to receive liquid chlorine by railcar as late as summer 1982, but I doubt this practice continued for much longer. Finally, although Pabst Brewing Co. had ceased shipping from its Peoria Heights brewery in spring 1982, P&PU apparently continued to deliver boxcars of newsprint to the Peoria Journal Star.

After cutting its labor costs in 1982, P&PU set out to market itself and attract new traffic, but traffic would continue to decline. The severe economic recession officially ended in November of that year, but one of the railroad’s largest customers, Caterpillar Tractor Co., had virtually shutdown due to a strike which began October 1. It would linger until the following April. As a consequence of rising costs and foreign competition, Caterpillar set out to adopt “just-in-time” inventory practices and modernize and reconfigure its East Peoria plant complex.

The changes made by Caterpillar included outsourcing parts fabrication to suppliers, some foreign. A significant rail shuttle movement of steel from Central Illinois Dock Co. to Building LL would soon end, as would deliveries of forgings in boxcars to Building RR. At least foreign sourcing of parts increased intermodal business (more on that below).

Throughout the 1980’s, P&PU lost additional customers: Coal dealer Putnam Supply Co. closed in summer 1984 when its owner retired and Pabst closed its grist mill at the end of the year. Petratex Corp acquired Bemis’ paper mill in late 1985, but succumbed to bankruptcy two years later. Ivex Corp. purchased the mill, but made limited use of rail transportation, if at all. Wayne Pet Foods closed its Bartonville dog food plant in November 1988.

Some good news came in 1984 when prospects for a buyer of Pabst’s brewery and the desire to restore rail service to Pioneer Industrial Park led City of Peoria and Village of Peoria Heights to purchase the Kellar Branch from bankrupt Rock Island Railroad. Traffic hopes didn’t pan out as expected (no doubt partly due to the City’s per car user fees), but did attract some new business to the line between 1986 and 1989 – Gateway Milling, O’Brien Steel Service Co. and Cohen’s Furniture.

A bright spot for P&PU traffic during the 1980’s was intermodal. For years, Caterpillar made use of “piggyback” trailer and container service offered by area railroads. Then, the company converted a former Zenith television plant in Memphis, Tennessee to a regional distribution center in 1975, and Illinois Central (Gulf) “piggyback” traffic handled via the P&PU’s Creve Coeur facility boomed. By fall 1980, a new facility, complete with a container crane and hard surface had been placed in service to handle the increased business. Unfortunately, ICG had made the decision to replace individual ramps at Peoria, Decatur and Springfield with a centralized facility at Bloomington.

Not all was bad for P&PU because in June 1981, Conrail canceled joint rates with the TP&W, causing Caterpillar to divert its European container business to the Norfolk & Western, which used the P&PU facility. This business would boom during the mid-1980’s. P&PU formed “Peoria Midwest Transportation Service” (PMTS) in 1988 to handle intermodal loading/unloading and drayage operations. Around the same time, P&PU began handling storage and consolidation of Caterpillar machinery shipments, further increasing traffic in that area (Cat’s decision to move D6 assembly back to East Peoria in 1988 increased rail business as well).

 In Part IV, I will list of P&PU customers for 1993.

- David P. Jordan