Crab Orchard and Egyptian Railroad Connections @ Marion IL
The MoPac interchanged daily with the Crab Orchard and Egyptian Railroad at Marion IL. General merchandise, coal, grain, scrap metal, and even TOFC flats were the norm in the early 1980's. The CO&E was successful in negotiating with local businesses in Marion and Herrin IL to use rail transportation, and this was clearly spelled out with the TOFC program...CO&E loaded their flatcars "circus style" near the Ordill area of the Crab Orchard wildlife refuge. Neat, huh?
The modeled portion of this line will include the MP/CO&E connections and the small MP yards at Marion IL. A large portion of the general merchandise traffic generated on the HO scale Joppa Sub will come from interchange with the CO&E, which was the case in the prototype. Now that Atlas has released the new ACF 89' flatcars in CO&E, we HO modelers are now capable of duplicating ALL FACETS of this traffic...Atlas also offers up the Erie Western cars as well...in eight numbers. There was a considerable amount of traffic generated by the CO&E during the 1980's for MP. This traffic will include the interchange of WFAX coal at Marion with forwarding to points north of West Frankfort, as well as the TOFC and general merchandise traffic that was typical of the early 1980's on this line.
The CO&E will be powered with a single SW1200, former MoPac 1147, even though they used steam in the early 1980's, my choice to stretch the 1987 time frame a few years early doesn't hurt me as much...especially with the live interchange possibilities that come with it!!