CB@Q train shed

[asppools92]

I grew up in Streator in the 50s and 60s while riding my bike and getting train rides on the Burlington switcher going out to Anthonys and Owens. It all started by hanging around the depot and the engineers asking if I wanted a ride. That did it. I also got to ride the switcher on the Santa Fe while I use to hangout @ the viaduct and watch them switch the rail cars. My dad worked the docks at Anthonys and I was suppose to be grounded and I snuck out for a ride on the switcher to Anthonys not knowing they would be talking to my dad @ the loading dock for switching out flat cars. The engineer said look up in the locomotive and of course I was standing there. That was the good ole days. When did the train shed go away? I enjoy reading all of the forums on Streator! What a great town to grow up in. I left Streator in the summer of 1965.

[Dave_L]

I also lived in Streator during the 50s & early 60s, moving in 64 when my dad took a job out of state. I spent the next several years trying to re-create what I lost in moving, to no avail. It was a precious time indeed, when kids could be kids, in real neighborhoods, without today's treachery.

My dad used to load us up in the 53 Chevy and take us to the train depot where we would spend the evenings watching the trains load and unload. He was really geeked over trains and I remember hopping across track after track at Kankakee going through the roundhouse.

I can't answer about the Streator train shed but this model railroading article might help. It says "The prototype depot in Streator stood until it burned down in the mid-1980s, long after Norfolk & Western (Wabash’s successor) abandoned the line." foxriverbranch.com/book/export/html/3

[John]

Here is the newspaper article of the fire that destroyed the old Wabash Depot on Bridge St.

[DumDave]

The link to the railroad layout in Plano ,TX. is very interesting.
-DD