Peoria Station

It’s time for the monthly “Ask Peoria Station” post. Ask me about anything pertaining to transportation – current and historical – and I’ll try to get you an answer. – David P. Jordan

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PEORIA – The City of Peoria has filed a Trail Use Request with the Surface Transportation Board. You can read it here. Some highlights are as follows: (1) The STB will make a decision on the CIRY/PIRY petitions for trackage rights and discontinuance of service on April 16 (Decision was announced January 15, but somehow [...]

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Amtrak’s new Washington, DC-Lynchburg (VA) service, which began operation last October 1 as an extension of an existing Northeast Regional service, made a profit during its second month of operation. Wait…a profit? And you thought intercity passenger trains couldn’t make money in an era of interstate highways and mass air travel. But it’s true. Lynchburg, [...]

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An article in the Pekin Daily Times’ Saturday edition confirmed that MGP Ingredients has resumed operations at its Pekin distillery. A joint venture called “Illinois Corn Processing LLC” was formed last November when SEACOR Energy paid $15 million for half-ownership in the plant. The relationship to this blog is that MGP Ingredients’ Pekin distillery was a major [...]

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The City of Peoria must realize it can’t shut out opportunities for industrial growth. The Planning & Growth Management Department has designated an area southwest of Caterpillar’s Mossville plant complex as “Growth Cell 4.” It will be reserved for industrial development. See map here. The majority of acreage at this location lies on the west side [...]

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Our Founding Fathers made one mistake when drafting the U. S. Constitution: elected officials should have been required to be knowledgeable about the issues they talk about. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen and today’s politicians do not know their subject matter. And it too often results in silliness, and unnecessary spending of taxpayer dollars. Case in point – [...]

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“We need to either fix Chicago or avoid it,” says BNSF Railway CEO Matt Rose in a Bloomberg article from Wednesday. His company’s intermodal trains can run between Los Angeles and Chicago in 55 hours, but consume 36 hours interchanging with another railroad at the latter point. I have a solution: the Toledo Peoria & [...]

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Back in 2008, Globe Energy Eco-System announced plans for a new 165,000 square foot manufacturing facility adjacent to its existing plant at 1610 W. Altorfer Drive (part of which can be seen at left). The company also publicly expressed a future need for freight rail transportation at its Pioneer Park facility. Recently, however, I noticed the [...]

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According to Delta Air Lines’ current timetables, jet service between Peoria and Minneapolis/St. Paul begins April 6. On that date, Pinnacle Airlines dba Delta Connection will begin operating two daily roundtrips between Peoria and MSP using 50-seat Canadair Regional Jets. These will replace a like number of flights currently operated by Mesaba Airlines with 34-seat Saab 340 turboprops. [...]

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