And the Illinois Central

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Left: Normal Amtrak depot, 1973 (photo by Mike Matejka) Center: C. Harold Adolph, an employee of the Illinois Central Railroad, uses a “Y” hoop to pass train orders to a northbound freight as it approaches the Normal depot. (Walt Peters photograph from the collection of Joe Collias) Above: Uptown Station, 2015 (photo by Mike Matejka) Normal and the Railroad ormal exists because two railroad The railroad created job opportunities for In 1873, a Gothic “gingerbread” depot was lines intersected. In 1853, the Normal residents. The station in Normal built at the end of Parkinson Street, with Chicago & Alton (C&A) and required an agent, and many traveled to separate waiting rooms for men and wom- Nthe Illinois Central (IC) Railroads crossed, Bloomington to work in the vast Chicago en. This was replaced in 1924 by a substan- thus creating a transportation-accessible lo- & Alton Railroad Shops, or to work as engi- tial brick building, which was torn down cation for the Illinois State Normal School. neers, conductors or trainmen on the runs about 1974. to Chicago or St. Louis. In 1867 another line reached Normal – the In 1972 the GM&O and the IC merged to Bloomington & Normal Street Railway. The last passenger train on the Illinois form the Illinois Central Gulf. By the 1980s This horse-propelled service connected Central line, which is today’s north-south traffic dwindled on the old IC line and it downtown Bloomington with Normal. In Constitution Trail, ran about 1938. The became today’s Constitution Trail start- 1890 this line was electrified and until 1937 last passenger train on the Chicago & Al- ing in 1988. The freight line went through electric trolleys hummed back and forth, ton’s successor, the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio multiple owners, owned since 1996 by the until they were replaced by buses. (GM&O), was a 1950s late night mail train. Union Pacific Railroad. Passenger service returned on June 10, 1990, when the first Normal Amtrak station opened south of the tracks. With train travel now more accessible to university students, traffic surged and the small station was extremely crowded and busy. On July 17, 2012, the current Uptown Station opened on the north side of the tracks, now the second busiest Amtrak stop in Illinois. Today both Amtrak passenger and Union Pacific freight trains pass through Normal, a vital transportation link since the 1850s. Left: Normal Depot, circa 1900.

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