The Ivory Field & Orchard Railway

# SECTION I: The Ivory Lines

Our story begins in May of 1872, in a small city named Madison, located in Wisconsin. On February 8 1872, Ulysses S. Grant allowed for the chartering of the Ivory Lines railroad, which would serve Wisconsin and Chicago primarily. The President being a man by the name of Peyton Ellis, age 39 at the time, Ellis had watched the railroad since he young and he loved it, he would regularly head down to the track near his small home in St. Louis to watch the trains come in everyday, often he'd watch the Pennsylvania railroad ship in their new locomotives from Altoona for testing. In 1854 he applied for a position in their company and was accepted, he now had access to the railroad for as long as he pleased. He used this to his own benefit, studying locomotive designs and railroad infrastructure, he frequently found himself lodged in his trains caboose, sketching possible designs for them. In 1859 he decided to take a chance and requested to see John Edgar Thomson, President of the PRR, to him he presented various sketches of changes to be made to the infrastructure and new locomotive designs that would benefit the railroad, and from this was born the PRR D1 and D2, built in 1868 and 1869 at the height of his career on the PRR, Peyton was one of the first to pilot these new locomotives along some newly laid track that he had presented to John. In 1870, Peyton had been let off as lead locomotive designer of the PRR, however his love for the railroad had not left him. He began formulating a plan for a grand railroad, one that would take advantage of various issues, he settled on a location in Madison, WI.

# Section II: Acquisition

The Ivory lines served well into the 1900s, surviving all the way up until 1934 and servicing the United States during WWI. The Ivory line had managed to stay afloat for some of the first years of the Great Depression, however in 1934 they had hit rock bottom and declared bankruptcy in May of that year, but this is not the end of our story. A man by the name of Thomas Anderson had been watching the Ivory Lines and he knew that they were bound to go under soon, In February of 1934 he met with the current president of the line, Robert Atkins, who had succeeded Peyton Ellis after his death in 1917. Anderson struck a deal with Atkins and purchased the Ivory lines and rebranded it as the Violet Lines for a short period of time (1934-1942). However the name was changed in June of 1942 to the Ivory Field and Orchard railway after recent territorial acquisition of Orchard Valley in the city of Peoria, IL. 1 However, not everything went smoothly. The railroad found itself in the midst of WWII and was now being pushed to their limits to ship as much as they could and produce more power to ship more materials to the frontlines. This came easy for the company however as they had a very strong presence in their area and were able to stay afloat for the majority of the war.

# Section III: Bankruptcy

This wont be a long segment. However in the summer of 1946, just after the wars end, the IF&O faced a major bankruptcy, the postwar boom hadn't hit the IF&O yet and they had reached record low profits. In September of 1946 the IF&O Declared bankruptcy and just days before they were scheduled to stop services, they saw a massive increase in profits and withdrew their request for Bankruptcy. The court however; wasn't in favor of this decision and tried to keep the bankruptcy going considering all the effort they had put into the case. However in January of 1947 the case was officially dropped after a long battle between the Railroad and the Court.

# Section IV: Revival

The Ivory Field and Orchard was now thriving, with record profits and a huge fleet they were seeing record high passenger numbers and even higher freight orders. They were ready to take it to the next level. In 1949 they acquired most of the Baltimore & Ohio route after the B&O declared bankruptcy, and took over most of their services. Pushing Routes like the *Columbian* and the *Cincinnatian* harder than ever before with 3 trains servicing it around the clock. In 1953 the IF&O also acquired the rights to most of the CNW system after they were driven under by constant wrecking and derailment destroyed most of their fleet. The IF&O decided not to keep most CNW services and just keep the trackage, the only services kept were the '400', The 'Challenger', and the 'City of Los Angeles'. Making the IF&O one of the largest railways in the 1950s.

# Section V: Steam Usage

While the years may not seem to match up, the IF&O used steam from 1872 up until 1993. They had several services run under steam during these years, including the *Twin Cities 400, Ohio Speeder, Niagara Limited, Chicagoan, Peoria Limited,* and *The Aurora Bounder.* These services ran all throughout the country. The most popular steam services on the IF&O were the *Aurora Bounder, Twin Cities 400, Union Special,* and *The 58 Local.* These services were the companies big earners powered by steam, out of these 4, 2 would continue to run up until the 90's and would be brought back later on to continue services, those being the *Aurora Bounder* and *The 58 Local*, which would be renamed to the *Springfield Direct* and would have the route extended. Most *Passenger* trains that were led by steam consisted of the same locomotives throughout the years. Which were as listed here.

## Locomotives and their routes

1937 Aurora Bounder: 2-8-4 Locomotives #283-#284

1945 Twin Cities 400: 2-8-2 Locomotive #3821

1967 Aurora Bounder: 4-6-4 Locomotive #447

1968 58 Local: 4-6-2 Locomotives #2141 & #2214

1973 Peoria Limited: 4-4-4-4 Locomotive #2933

1975 Chicagoan: 4-4-4-4 Locomotive #2934

1983 Aurora Bounder: 4-8-4 Locomotives #299 & #325

1992-1995 Union Special: 2-8-4 Locomotive #284

1998 Springfield Direct: 4-6-4 Locomotive #447

These services were crucial to the IF&O and provided them with the revenue that would allow them to continue operating into the modern day. Most of these locomotives were unfortunately retired and scrapped, however most of them are still around today, Including #299, #325 and #447, which still run their services. The IF&O steam fleet is the largest of all other modern day railroads, still retaining over 20+ steam locomotives in revenue service. Most run freight trains, however at least 10 run regular passenger services across the country.

The IF&O's Steam fleet was put to the test in the mid 20s & 30s. When they purchased over 500 Various locomotives to use. Many of these Package-buys being the preserved IF&O locomotives found across America, About 386 Locomotives purchased were strictly freight engines, very powerful engines such as the M-3, C-35 & L-5, about 57 were Mixed engines, powerful but easy to handle, Like the L-3, P-4t & H-4c, the remaining 57 were strictly passenger locomotives, designed to carry long, but light consists across America such as the G-9h, C-6 & B-5 (Including #2933 & #2934, later also #284 after her 1995 season which saw her rebuilt entirely)