The Flickr Oaklandillinois Image Generatr

Shed is located in Oakland, Illinois.

Dr. Hiram Rutherford, a recognized abolitionist, is most notable for his association with the Matson slave trial in 1847, the only known case in which Abraham Lincoln, then a circuit rider, defended a slave owner.

The grain elevator in Oakland, Illinois, is fairly typical of small town Midwest grain facilities. The original elevator lies at the core of the complex but has added various silos and other buildings over the years.

You're looking eastward on Illinois Route 133 about a mile or two west of Oakland. The Embarras River marks the boundary between Coles and Douglas counties.

You are looking north on what was once the Nickel Plate Road line to St. Louis. The signal guarded a crossing with a Pennsylvania Railroad line that once ran between Terre Haute, Indiana, and Peoria, but today is largely abandonded. The former NKP is used by the Decatur & Eastern Illinois and goes no further east than Metcalf, Illinois. The diamond of the two railroads would have been adjacent to that tree on the right.

For some reason the eastbond home signal in Oakland, Illinois, on what was once a Nickel Plate Road route to St. Louis still stands even though the crossing it once guarded was removed about three decades ago. There used to be a Pennsylvania Railroad line here just beyond where the tree is today. The ex-NKP is now operated by short line Decatur & Eastern Illinois.

This signal once guarded the crossing of the Nickel Plate Road and the Pennsylvania Railroad in Oakland, Illinois. Today the ex-PRR line is abandoned and the NKP doesn't go east of Metcalf, Illinois, or west of Neoga, Illinois. What was once the Cloverleaf route to St. Louis is now operated by the Decatur & Eastern Illinois.

This depot served the Pennsylvania Railroad in Oakland, Illinois, on a branch that once extended from Terre Haute, Indiana, to Peoria, Illinois. The last passenger train ran on April 24, 1949, between Decatur and Paris, Illinois. The former PRR tracks through here were abandoned in the 1980s.

The former Pennsylvania Railroad station in Oakland, Illinois, is quite weather beaten but it appears to have received a new roof in recent years. Now it needs a few coats of paint. Outside the depot is a small collection of railroad artifacts including a baggage wagon and a track car. The former PRR line ran between where I'm standing and the depot and was abandoned in the 1980s.

The name on the station identification board of this former Pennsylvania Railroad station is barely legible and only then if you know it is located in Oakland, Illinois. The former Pennsy line here is long gone. Just about all of the paint once applied by the PRR is gone. This side of the station faces west.

This remnant of a semaphore signal stands outside the former Pennsylvania Railroad station in Oakland, Illinois. The rail line was abandoned in the 1980s. There is a small collection of railroad artifacts outside the station including this signal. It is not clear if this signal was used on the former PRR line or brought in from somewhere else. My memory of seeing the line during its PRR days is that the only semaphore signals were fixed approached signals in advance of crossings with other railroads.

This is the remains of a bridge that once carried a Pennsylvania Railroad branch over the Embarras River west of Oakland, Illinois. The line was operated by two short line railroads in the 1970s and 1980s before being abandoned. The Wabash Valley was the initial short line operator but quit after an operating subsidy from the State of Illinois expired. The Prairie Central Railway operated the line into the 1980s before it, too, ceased operations. The bridge is adjacent to Illinois Route 133.

It is difficult to tell today but this view looking eastward in Illinois shows the former right of way of a Pennsylvania Railroad branch that once extended from Terre Haute, Indiana, to Peoria, Illinois. The land has been reworked since the branch was abandoned in the 1980s.

Walnut State Park near Oakland, Illinois.

Interior shot of the outdoor bathroom in Oakland, Illinois.

At one time this signal protected a crossing of the St. Louis line of the Nickel Plate Road in Oakland, Illinois, with a branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad that ran between Peoria, Illinois, and a point west of Terre Haute, Indiana. But by the time I visited Oakland in May 2007 the former PRR branch was gone. The ex-NKP track here is operated by the Eastern Illinois Railroad. The view is looking northeast toward where the diamond used to be. (Scanned from a slide)

September 28, 2012 - Oakland, Illinois.