Peoria Station

Amtrak’s Peoria-Chicago rail passenger service feasibility study isn’t even ready for public scrutiny and local officials are making their own plans. This wouldn’t be so bad if their plans made sense. The newest scheme, reports the Journal Star on Wednesday, proposes an east-west corridor extending from the Quad Cities to Champaign. One official even suggested [...]

[Read more]

Peoria is seeking a rail connection to a planned Memphis-Nashville Amtrak route. Okay, I’m just kidding. Amtrak isn’t planning such a route so obviously, Peoria isn’t seeking a connection to it. Did it seem ridiculous right away? Absolutely, but not much more ridiculous than seeking a rail connection to Amtrak’s existing Chicago – St. Louis route at Normal. The only viable [...]

[Read more]

The Journal Star reported last Thursday that the old British Petroleum (BP) fuel storage terminal in Creve Coeur is now clean and ready for development. This is good news, but there’s a problem. According to Creve Coeur’s mayor, several companies, including a chain hotel and large retail store, looked at it. No! Keep those commercial and retail developments out. [...]

[Read more]

BNSF Railway merchandise train rolls through Galesburg on May 8, 2009 with a block of boxcars containing Anheuser-Busch products bound for Coon Rapids, Minnesota. I didn’t see this coming, though others probably did. Anheuser-Busch’s new owner, InBev, apparently thought using the company’s own truck subsidiary was a better deal for the shipment of beer to [...]

[Read more]

I had originally planned to skip to August 2001, but realized that doing so would exclude Trans States Airlines’ brief venture into regional jet service as a TWA feeder carrier. So I dug up my airline timetables and determined it best to visit June 2000. Unfortunately, I found some errors of aircraft type and frequency, [...]

[Read more]

NOTE: The original post was deleted because of a changeover to a new server. I decided to post a new one. In a move that suggests a resumption of operations will soon become a reality, Aventine Renewable Energy has agreed to pay a $15,000 fine for toxic wastewater pollution in two nearby lakes. It will [...]

[Read more]

Bruce Carter left Peoria in December 1998 to take the helm of the Quad City International Airport. Assistant Director Fred Traub replaced him. Traub began his new job as the Greater Peoria Regional Airport entered a new phase in its history, one with more jet service and destinations, but also the rising threat from an airport 45 miles to the [...]

[Read more]

Although the Peoria area once held the title, “Whiskey Capital of the World,” beer was made here too. The most famous being the Pabst Blue Ribbon brand, which along with some other beers, was shipped from Peoria Heights between 1933 and 1982. Gipps Beer was also made here into the 1950s. Ironically, the only local brewery still standing in 2011 was pre-Prohibition Era Leisy Brewing [...]

[Read more]

By the time local air service hit bottom in 1995, everyone knew something had to be done. So in mid-August of that year, the airport authority hired Minneapolis-based Kiehl Hendrickson Group to study passenger travel patterns which would help lure new or expanded airline service. After Kiehl completed its study late the following month, it recommended targeting Low-Cost [...]

[Read more]

Canadian Pacific Railway subsidiary Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railway (DM&E) operates a “Kellar Branch-esque” rail line from a junction with its mainline at the Water Works in Davenport, Iowa north to near Eldridge. The only regular user in the past 18 months has been PB Leiner USA, which manufactures porcine gelatin and hydrolysates from animal fats. Service [...]

[Read more]