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The LaSalle and Bureau County Railroad Company

 

  LS&BC 

The LaSalle and Bureau County Railroad Company


LS&BC Baldwin S8 #8, LaSalle, IL 1970 Photo by Harold Vollrath

The LaSalle and Bureau County Railroad Company operated 15 miles of track in north central Illinois.  The "Bee" (as it was called locally) was founded in 1892 to provide a connection for the zinc mines of LaSalle, IL to the neighboring railroads.

In LaSalle, the LS&BC connected with the Illinois Central's "Gruber Line" at Midway.  The line then went west to a wye (called Hegeler), where it connected with the Streator-Zearing branch of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, along with the DeKalb-Spring Valley branch of the Chicago and North Western.  The LS&BC then had to complete a "flatland switchback" in order to gain access to the New York Central's Illinois Division track (at Churchill), which provided the LS&BC with access to Ladd, IL.

After the Rock Island folded in the early 1980s, the LS&BC took over some of the switching operations on the south side of Chicago.  The LS&BC also operated some former Milwaukee Road trackage around Mendota after Milwaukee's retrenchment, but that service was eventually taken over by the Burlington Northern.

Operations at LaSalle lasted until 1986, at which time the ICG abandoned the Gruber Line, stranding the LS&BC.  The last day of operation was March 25, 1986.

The name LS&BC ended when the name of the Chicago switching operation was changed to Chicago Rail Link.  The CRL exists to this day, as a part of the OmniTRAX Inc. group.
    

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Questions, comments or material that you would like to contribute?  Contact me at joebartoli at sbcglobal dot net.

Copyright Notice: text © J. Bartoli, 2014, unless otherwise noted. All photographs are Copyrighted by the individuals or organizations identified with those photos.

Last Modified 12/24/2014.