by PD&EBuff
I’ve wondered about this line since discovering it on a railroad atlas quite a few years ago. I thought I would pass the following along. Almost all of it comes from an article in the October, 1956 Illinois Central Magazine. It was a story by a retired agent at Oblong, Illinois named Roy Dalrymple. For some reason the magazine had trouble understanding that Hardinville didn’t have an “s” in it. So with that obvious error, take the rest for what it is worth. Still, I thought some of you might find the following interesting.
The line was organized on May 29th, 1909 by business men in and around Oblong. Originally they issued $400,000 in common stock and had a survey made from Bridgeport, through Oblong, to Charleston – all in Illinois. Work was begun at Oblong using second hand rail bought in Chicago in 1909, reaching about 10 miles south the following year.
At that time the Oil Belt had an old IC locomotive, a single box car, and a lone flat car. Using their entire rolling stock fleet, they made an inaugural run one Sunday in 1910 from Oblong to Hardinville charging over a hundred passengers fifty cents each for the trip. Unfortunately this was as far as they could go, as the original funds had been expended. Completion of the line to Bridgeport required several hundred thousands in bonds to be issued. The line never made it one inch north of Oblong.
By 1917 the locomotive was beyond repair. At this point, they scraped up enough money for a down payment on a self propelled gasoline powered combined coach and baggage car. Unfortunately the Oil Belt missed its next payment on the car. And after failure to return it to its owner, a representative from the company was forced to come onsite and steal it back in the middle of the night. With no motive power left, this was the end of the Oil Belt Railway of Illinois. The rails ended up on the MKT and rest was sold to a scrap dealer in Bridgeport.
The line was organized on May 29th, 1909 by business men in and around Oblong. Originally they issued $400,000 in common stock and had a survey made from Bridgeport, through Oblong, to Charleston – all in Illinois. Work was begun at Oblong using second hand rail bought in Chicago in 1909, reaching about 10 miles south the following year.
At that time the Oil Belt had an old IC locomotive, a single box car, and a lone flat car. Using their entire rolling stock fleet, they made an inaugural run one Sunday in 1910 from Oblong to Hardinville charging over a hundred passengers fifty cents each for the trip. Unfortunately this was as far as they could go, as the original funds had been expended. Completion of the line to Bridgeport required several hundred thousands in bonds to be issued. The line never made it one inch north of Oblong.
By 1917 the locomotive was beyond repair. At this point, they scraped up enough money for a down payment on a self propelled gasoline powered combined coach and baggage car. Unfortunately the Oil Belt missed its next payment on the car. And after failure to return it to its owner, a representative from the company was forced to come onsite and steal it back in the middle of the night. With no motive power left, this was the end of the Oil Belt Railway of Illinois. The rails ended up on the MKT and rest was sold to a scrap dealer in Bridgeport.
