I was driving from St. Louis to Chicago, in a persistent but light rain. It was November 4, 1986, where traveling north on I-55, I saw the only Illinois Central Gulf train I would actually ever see in my life. (Years earlier I had been very seriously considering Principia College and planning out all the railfanning I was going to do of the ICG from campus, but I didn't end up going there). Anyway, when I saw this train, I had no idea what town I was near, what line this train was on, where it was going or where it was coming from. I did a quick u-turn and got off the interstate at Brown Road in Divernon. Spotted an old train station a block south, drove up to it, took this shot (and a going away) and then got back on the interestate. Years later I put together what I had shot. Shot from west of the tracks on a RR owned road at MP208.9. The train is coming from Freeman Coal Crown III mine west of Farmersville, IL which opened in 1981 (about 10 miles south). The train is northbound with three ICG GP38-2s and one GM&O GP38-2 and a string of bathtub gons. This track was originally the Jacksonville Southeastern railroad. In 1899 the Illinois Central bought the railroad for the Madison Coal Corp. mine #6 in Divernon (it produced the most coal in the state between 1900 and 1930, it closed in 1925!).
