CLINTON, Ill. — Central Illinois will gain a new short line if the Surface Transportation Board OKs a filing dated Sept. 11, 2019, to lease a 10.7-mile section of the Illinois Central Railroad Charter Line. Motive Rail Inc., dba Illinois Terminal Belt, will serve two grain elevators, both Tate & Lyle Grain Inc. operations at Wapella and the end of the line in Heyworth, Ill.
The line will be start at a connection in Clinton, Ill., a former IC division point. Clinton is milepost 773.5 and the end point in Heyworth is 784.2.
Trains Newswire spoke by phone with Jay Respondek, vice president of operations for Motive Rail Inc., headquartered in Cape Girardeau, Mo. “The line hasn’t seen a train in over two years. Our main goal is to get Tate & Lyle up and running and moving railcars. With 105 car unit trains, obviously it’s an opportunity to get some business on the line and perhaps find new business looking ahead. In the future were hoping to do transloading, the only problem being there’s not any sidetracks on the line.
“We will be moving two locomotives to the line; we hope our startup date is in near the end of October. There is really only one small curve on the line, I think two locomotives will be able to handle the trains’’.
Motive Rail Inc., has rail operations in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Michigan.
Also a section north out of Vandalia.
@Les Respondek: My bad. Illini Terminal is run by Terry Respondek out of Decatur. Not the same as Motive Rail down in Cape Girardeau.
There are actually 5 or 6 short line segments remaining of the Charter Line of the I throughout Illinois
. Another short section extends to the south of the Clinton IL junction for 3 businesses on the south end of town. Good to see this historic section back in regular service with an excellent operator. Now if they could just paint the two locos in Illinois Terminal colors…???!!!
This operation has nothing to do with the Illini Terminal. Jay Respondek along with myself and Jerry Respondek own Motive Rail.
FWIW: Jay Respondek also runs the Illini Terminal RR in Litchfield Illinois. The engine is painted in IT yellow and green in all its glory.
This Clinton-Heyworth line is one of 2 sections left of the original Illinois Central chartered “Spine Line” north of Centralia. The other runs south of Decatur to Assumption and is run by Decatur Junction.
You will not see any tracks on IT ROW. It has been reclaimed by farmers or remains as a utility easement for Ameren Power. Ameren is the descendant of Illinois Traction’s power generation entity that was split off in the 1930’s.
You can still see IT’s bridges over rivers and creeks between Decatur and Bloomington, but I am afraid there is no use for that old ROW.
Probably not new tracks, but there will be lime green and yellow on the locos.
Though on IC trackage, IT paralleled IC all the way from Decatur to Bloomington, including this stretch of track. I wonder if they’re planning on building new tracks on the old IT ROW.