by salminkarkku
According to the ICC, this short line operated 1905-8. From the name I guess it was in Bureau County IL, but I've never come across it. Has anybody?
Railroad Forums
"Marquette, Spring Valley & Northwestern RR"?
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by FLbound
This was part of a chain of roads projected by coal operator Charles J. Devlin of Toluca/Spring Valley, designed to link the Devlin coal properties at Toluca with the C&NW at Spring Valley, IL, around 1901. Supposedly four miles were built between La Salle and Marquette by 1905, when high costs of building the road led to Devlin's bankruptcy, stroke and death. The Chicago, Ottawa & Peoria Ry. (later IT) then bought the line in bankruptcy sale around 1907, and used its track or right of way as part of its own line. The rest of the Devlin empire -- the Toluca & Eastern and the Toluca, Marquette & Northern -- of course became the Rutland, Toluca & Northern RR in 1910. This road stumped me for years. I finally found it in an obscure 1991 local biography of Devlin by Lewis Wabel I checked out thru interlibrary loan.