Rochelle Illinois area gradient profiles.

Good morning everyone,

This is my first post, I'm from England and have spent too much time watching the Rochelle Webcam .

I have decided that I'd like to try and get the area from about 30 miles outside of Rochelle into Railworks / Train Simulator. To make the planned route as accurate as I can, I ideally would like to have the gradient profiles for each of the BNSF and UP routes through the area, i.e. what % gradient, and for how long, together with some details of where signals are along the lines too.

If anyone could help with those, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks in advance.

Very Best Wishes,
Bob.

I used to live in Rochelle, as well as work for BN. My experience working there is limited, since soon after being hired, the Fox River and Rockford branches were sold. Cicero hump was closed too, so this forced relocation to Galesburg. I'll tell you what I know.

BN was up hill through Warerman, Shabbona, to Lee, which is the summit of that section. Some of the signals had G plates through there. This means that if the block signal was red, no stop and proceed at restricted speed was required. Just proceed at restricted speed. It was fairly level through Steward, and into Rochelle. Continuing west, the line started a gradual climb through Flagg Center, and Chana. The real climb started before Oregon. There were lots of ups and downs in NW Illinois, while finally descending from Burke Siding into Savanna.

On the Northwestern (now UP), there is a town called Creston, which is east of Rochelle. That town is aptly named. I believe this line climbed back up west of town too. This didn't seem all that steep.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't save any track profiles for this line. I don't even think that I had any for the C&I. As stated, soon after training, my position in Aurora was cut. Somewhere I have seen topographic maps online. This may give an idea of the approximate grade. Satellite images on Google Earth would let you see if the roadbed does not correspond with the general topography.

Two possibilities may have some information you can use:

Burlington Route Historical Society at http://www.burlingtonroute.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Chicago & North Western Historical Society at http://www.cnwhs.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's a shot in the dark, but the various railway historical societies sometimes have some interesting things squirreled away, and there may be some historic track charts, etc., in their possession.