Homewood to Champaign, Illinois Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of North America

with my reliable Appletons' Guide.

Published in the late 19th century,

my Appletons' General Guide to North America will direct me

to all that's novel, beautiful, memorable and striking

in the United States.

As I journey across this vast continent,

I'll discover how pioneers and cowboys conquered the West.

GUNSHOTS

And how the railroads tied this nation together,

helping to create the global superstate of today.

I'm continuing towards the south,

riding on the tracks of the old Illinois Central Railroad.

Benefiting from the advocacy services

of a lawyer named Abraham Lincoln,

by 1856 it was the longest railway in the world, running,

in the words of my Appletons',

'across the rich prairie lands of central Illinois,

'which roll off as far as the eye can reach.'

Eventually it would stretch down to New Orleans,

with more than 3,000 miles of track.

Running parallel to the Mississippi,

a river to which it offered fierce competition.

My railway journey tracks the birth of the industrial Midwest.

I began in the 19th century powerhouse of Minneapolis.

Then headed south along the trade route of the Mississippi,

to La Crosse in rural Wisconsin.

Striking east, I landed at Lake Michigan's Milwaukee,

and then turned south

to explore rail's golden age in Chicago.

Next, I'll continue south through Illinois's rich prairie,

whose agriculture fed the cities,

and end at the home of the blues in Memphis, Tennessee.

On this leg I journey south of Chicago

through Illinois' old prairie lands,

beginning at Homewood's fine country club.

I then had to the wonderfully named Kankakee,

before I finish in Champaign with a heritage ride

at the Monticello Railway Museum.

This time, I get my hands on the hooter.

People often talked about the smell of steam locomotives.

What about the sound of them?

TRAIN HORN TOOTS

I'm in full swing on the fairway.

Taking the club back...

Oops.

..and party on the platform.

# I'll be gone by 100 miles when the day is done. #

The cafe bar is open and serving and as always,

thank you for riding Amtrak.

My next stop is Homewood, Illinois.

Appletons' tells me that the streets of the villages

are regularly laid out and planted with shade lined trees.

Chicago was grimy and polluted,

but the well-off could buy fresh air and after a short train ride,

swing by their country club, even if it was a fair way off.

Homewood is a suburb of Chicago,

about 25 miles south-west of The Loop.

The railroad transformed this rolling farmland

into a country getaway for wealthy Chicagoans,

and attracted its first country club for members only in 1899.

I'm curious to know more about its founding

from club historian Greg Ohlendorf.

-Hello, Greg.

-Michael. Welcome to Flossmoor Country Club.

Thank you. Very, very beautiful.

-I'm so pleased to be here.

-Well, let's go out and have a look around.

Thank you very much.

Flossmoor retains its exclusivity today.

Joining would set me back about 13,000 dollars.

So when do we first get country clubs being formed in the Chicago area?

Basically the 1890s.

They spurred off of the rail that went north to Chicago Golf Club,

and then down south to clubs like Flossmoor.

If the railway had not come down to Homewood at the time,

this country club wouldn't be here.

Did the railroads ever invest directly in country clubs?

Matter of fact, they did.

In 1893, the Illinois Central Railroad

bought 160 acres of farmland out here,

so they had this piece of property and didn't know what to do

with it until a couple of our founding members came along, and asked them

to extend the rail line so that they could build a country club out here.

The Illinois Central Railroad built its first suburban commuter line

south of Chicago in 1856, to serve the new middle class of Hyde Park.

By the 1880s,

commuter lines struck out from the city in 15 different directions as

far as 40 miles, enabling well-paid professionals to commute,

or spend weekends away from the city.

Why were people, I imagine particularly men, so keen to escape Chicago?

The hustle and bustle of the city was probably in its time not much

different than it is today.

So I think just getting out to the country and the beginnings of

suburbanisation probably encouraged folks to leave the city at a time on

the weekend to play a little golf.

During the early 1880s,

well-heeled businessmen who enjoyed sporting clubs in the city began to

establish similar amenities in the country.

Golf, tennis,

shooting and horse riding, and formal clubhouses with lavish ballrooms

offered members an exclusive social life.

Greg, you're a businessmen.

Do you think that from the earliest days businesspeople from Chicago

saw the advantage of getting together on the golf course?

I think business and golf probably were tied together from very early times.

One of our founders was a golfer and two were not,

but they still saw the advantage of

coming out and spending time together on the weekend.

And so the great wealth of the United States,

do you think it's partly due to the existence of its golf courses?

I'd like to believe that.

It probably has more to do with the existence of transportation and the

railways moving people about easily.

By 1900, there were over 1,000 country clubs across America.

We start with this big fella, do we?

-We're going to go with the long club first.

-Aha. So...

Looking towards the target.

Can't even see the flag from here cos it's such a long hole.

Taking the club back...

Oops.

-What do you think, Greg?

-It's a fair way.

It's not THE fairway.

I think I may have let you down on that one, Jerome. Sorry about that.

It's all right, we'll get through.

-We will, will we?

-It's all about the next shot.

The next shot, think of that. The next shot.

In a bunker, but a politician has often been in tighter situations.

I'll show you how much I know about golf. This is called the 19th hole.

It is, and this is the best part, Michael.

And this one, I think I will be able to sink.

-Yes.

-Cheers.

-Cheers to you as well.

I'm leaving behind country pursuits

to return to the railroad that by 1882 stretched over 900 miles,

from Chicago to New Orleans.

TRAIN HORN BLARES

I'm headed for Kankakee.

Appletons' tells me it's upon the river of the same name,

a tributary of the Illinois.

When the railroad was begun,

a forest stood upon the site of this now important town.

In the words of the song, "Architects may come and architects may go,"

I wonder if any had designs on Kankakee?

Bye-bye.

The Illinois Central Railroad reached the single cabin

which was Kankakee in 1853,

and ordered that a town be developed on this bend of the river.

Using the train, farmers could send crops to Chicago, 56 miles away, in

three hours instead of six days, and the new settlement prospered.

-Hello, Larry.

-Good afternoon.

-Welcome.

-I'm Michael.

-Nice to meet you, Michael, you're welcome to step in.

-Thank you.

It's a lovely stretch of river, isn't it?

It is. Very peaceful out here, especially today, very nice and calm.

Lots of lovely properties along here.

There is. Riverview Historic District, so a lot of neat homes from prior years.

60 miles from Chicago, and it couldn't be more peaceful.

As a lover of architecture,

I'm excited to be visiting Frank Lloyd Wright's ground-breaking

B Harley Bradley House,

a building that revolutionised American design in the 20th century.

Another architect, Gaines Hall, and his wife Sharon,

own the property today.

-Hello, Gaines.

-Hi Michael, nice to see you.

A great pleasure indeed.

Gaines, a Frank Lloyd Wright house.

I'm seeing a fairly low-sitting property, subdued colours,

very strong horizontal lines, an emphasis on the roof.

That's what came to be known as the Prairie Style.

He was trying to emphasise the horizontality of the prairie.

This particular house became the one that has been associated with the

beginning of the Prairie Design.

One architect told me, he said,

"This is the house that changed the face of American architecture."

It left behind old European influences,

you see nothing of Corinthian or Greek revival, or Roman.

It left all that behind.

It's truly American.

And you think he was deliberately seeking a

non-European, American style?

I think he was looking for his expression of what he began to call

the Organic Style, associating with nature,

and nature on the prairie was relatively flat.

The gable ends actually kick up, if you will.

And that's because Wright had a real fascination with Japanese architecture.

And that's about the only influence we can see from

somewhere outside the United States.

Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Wisconsin's broad,

flat prairie land in 1867.

He rejected the ornate European tradition,

and designed over 1,000 buildings in an Organic Style,

including Pennsylvania's Fallingwater in 1935,

and New York City's Guggenheim Museum, completed in 1959.

Now, you and your wife have played an important role in the house's

history. Tell me about that.

Well, we moved to Kankakee in 1998,

and we were asked if we'd ever seen the house, and we said no.

So we came and looked at the house.

And then, when the owners wanted to tear down the stable,

which had had no attention for 16 years,

and it was in dilapidated condition,

we determined that it was something that was worth saving for Kankakee.

So we went through some negotiations, we sold our house,

bought this house, moved in with not a working bathroom,

and began to start the restoration.

-And may we take a look inside now?

-You certainly may, let's go.

-Good.

During the late 19th century,

many American architects looked to the past,

and European styles, for their inspiration.

They built elaborate, many-storeyed houses with turrets and porches,

or grand neoclassical mansions.

The contrast with the modern Prairie Style

of Frank Lloyd Wright was stark.

Hmm.

The interior is not what I would have guessed from the exterior.

Here we've got all these dark woods, quite simply carved.

It's almost more a celebration of the forest than it is of the prairie.

-Ah, you must be Sharon.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Nice to meet you.

Congratulations to you on this amazing house.

Thank you. It's a nice home to live in.

It's laid out very nicely to entertain.

Does it have any quirks or details that captured your imagination?

I think one of the fascinating things to me,

is all of the wood in here is quarter sawn oak.

It's the way the log is actually cut, and it gives a unique grain.

Very refined kind of a grain.

And so Frank Lloyd Wright was into designing the light fixtures,

the furniture, every detail of the house.

He was. He designed most of the furniture that was in the house.

Unfortunately, it was all sold off over the years.

Well, I first saw the house from the river,

can we now see the river from the house?

Absolutely.

Well, one is certainly very aware of the river.

It's absolutely a wonderful view, isn't it?

The house is very well-oriented.

The river is something that I think makes the house setting unique.

He just wanted to make sure that wherever his architecture was,

it blended with the surrounding, and it recognised nature.

You can see, standing here, that we're in the trees,

we're overseeing the river,

and you're practically outside at this point.

You've now confronted the man Frank Lloyd Wright.

He has a reputation of being

the greatest American architect of the 20th century.

Why do you think that is?

It's hard to say why, but I would agree that he probably is.

Wright had his own style,

he was wanting to create something new all of the time.

When people come to visit this house,

they're blown away by what it was in 1900,

when Victorian and other styles were still there.

This is the house that changed the face of American architecture.

So, Kankakee's legacy is impressive,

and I'm lucky to have had such a privileged tour.

I'm heading back to the station, where, hospitably,

the locals are throwing a party.

If you've ever heard of the town of Kankakee,

it could have been in a song.

You might have heard it sung by Johnny Cash,

or maybe by Arlo Guthrie,

and it celebrates a great train.

It's called The City of New Orleans.

It passes through the station in a few moments' time,

and there's a concert where they're going to sing the song!

APPLAUSE

# Riding on the city of New Orleans

# Illinois Central... #

-How are you?

-I'm good, how you? How was your trip?

-A very good trip so far, thank you very much.

-Yeah?

# Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders

# Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of grain

# All along the southbound odyssey

# The train pulls out at Kankakee

# And rolls along past houses, farms and fields

# Good morning, America, how are you?

# Say don't you know me I'm your native son

# I'm the train they call the city of New Orleans

# And I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done

# Good morning, America, how are you?

# I said don't you know me I'm your native son

# I'm the train they call the city of New Orleans

# And I'll be gone five hundred miles when they day is done. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you!

This morning I'm heading south towards Memphis, Tennessee.

This is an enormous privilege,

to be able to spend a moment or two in the cab of the Amtrak.

And to be able to see for my own eyes

that the Illinois Central was built through the prairies,

straight as a die.

More than a quarter of Amtrak's national routes

pass through Illinois.

This diesel-electric locomotive has a maximum speed of 110mph.

My next stop will be Champaign, Illinois.

The guidebook says that it's a rapidly-growing city of 5,000 inhabitants,

at the intersection of the Indianapolis, Bloomington

and Western Railroad.

Clearly an important crossing point for railroads.

And Champaign might be the place to raise a glass to the history of the

Illinois Central.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now arriving in Champaign-Urbana.

Champaign-Urbana will be our next stop.

126 miles south of Chicago, Champaign was founded in 1855,

when the Illinois Central Railroad

laid its tracks two miles west of Urbana.

By 1871, Champaign was a thriving commercial centre,

with three railroads converging on the city.

20 miles west at the Monticello Railway Museum, a heritage line,

once owned by the Illinois Central, has been preserved.

I'm going to ride on the footplate.

There's no better way to understand railroad history

than to ride on old tracks, with vintage rolling stock.

Starting with this locomotive, a 280 from 1907.

TRAIN HORN TOOTS

People often talk about the smell of steam locomotives,

what about the sound of them?

TRAIN HORN TOOTS

Particularly in America!

Chartered in 1861,

the Monticello Railroad Company was incorporated

into the Illinois Central Railroad in 1902,

at the height of its expansion.

The museum and its locomotive are run by rail enthusiasts,

like director John Sciutto.

John, it's great to be on the footplate with you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Wonderful locomotive, 1907, I believe. Tell me about it.

It was built in 1907 for the Southern Railway,

it was last assigned to the Memphis Division,

which ran between Sheffield, Alabama and Memphis.

Did the museum have to do much work on the locomotive?

At the time it was purchased by the Museum,

it literally looked like a pile of scrap.

This locomotive was completely rebuilt,

took a period of about 15 calendar years.

The engine runs on 7.5 miles of vintage track, bought by the Museum.

And how do you feel, now that you can drive it on your own track?

Oh, it's wonderful that we have this,

not only a piece of history, running here in central Illinois,

but it's been recognised worldwide for our restoration efforts.

TRAIN HORN TOOTS

I'm curious to know more about the creation of the Illinois Central

as we head back.

How was the railroad organised, politically speaking?

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A Douglas were key supporters

of the original concept of pushing for land grant railroad

through Illinois.

The United States government owned the majority of the land in the

territory of the state, at the time.

And they basically gave the land to the railroad,

and the railroad in turn then sold off parcels to towns,

farmers and people that were developing along the railroad,

and then that money helped fund the railroad itself.

What did the railroad get out of it?

The railroad in turn received

all the freight traffic and passenger traffic.

Stephen Douglas was an Illinois Senator,

who together with Senator William King from Alabama,

steered the first Land Grant Act through Congress.

The Act secured 2.5 million acres of federal land

for the State of Illinois to sell,

thereby raising finance to build a railroad.

The Illinois Central was the first land grant railroad,

and paved the way for many more to follow.

The Illinois Central Railroad was very unique and key,

that it was not only the longest railroad in the world at the time,

but where other railroads were east and west,

the Illinois Central was north and south, geographically.

So naturally, it was a conduit for folks, especially in southern states,

that wanted to move to the free states of the north,

that they were transported from commerce areas such as New Orleans,

to the commercial and growing areas of the north, particularly Chicago, Illinois.

And did that intensify after the abolition of slavery?

Absolutely. All the free slaves,

and folks that wanted to better themselves,

a lot of them migrated to the north via the Illinois Central Railroad.

-And Chicago in particular?

-And Chicago in particular.

The Illinois Central was greatly indebted to a young lawyer,

Abraham Lincoln,

who defended the railroad in some 50 cases during the 1850s.

I'm returning to central Champaign, to visit the University of Illinois,

which for over a century has been at the cutting edge of rail research.

Appleton says of Champaign, that it has a female academy,

and that its schools are large and well-connected.

In a town that largely owes its existence to the railways,

I'd like to know what track education has taken since.

We've had railways now for 200 years,

but there are always more refinements to be made.

I'm keen to find out the latest from Dr Chris Barkan,

Director of Rail Tech.

-Chris.

-Hello.

My 19th century guidebook tells me

that this was an area of institutions,

of education, and of course it's a railway station.

Somehow the two have come together.

Yes, well, the university was the result of President Lincoln signing the Moral Act in 1862,

which led to the formation of land grant universities throughout the United States.

How do you think it is that the university finds its way into rail?

Well, of course, railroads were rapidly being built in the second half of the 19th century,

and the first knowledge I have of a rail programme around here was when

Professor Talbot started his work, I would say in the late 1880s,

or early 1890s.

Arthur Talbot was a brilliant civil engineering student here

during the late 1870s.

He became a professor

and his work on the design and construction of track

remains fundamental today.

By the beginning of the 20th century,

we were very clearly established as a substantial railway engineering department.

Nowadays, what are the sorts of issues you're dealing with?

We obviously want to continue to improve safety,

to prevent derailments and collisions.

And if we're going to mix high-efficiency freight trains,

and high-speed, reliable passenger trains on the same infrastructure,

we have to be particularly careful about this.

Building on the work of Professor Talbot,

Riley Edwards is researching how track structure

is affected by today's trains.

-Hello, Riley!

-Hello, Michael.

-Good to see you.

-Welcome to the track loading system.

What can we lend a hand with?

So, the task today is adhering some special gauges to the track,

that allow us to measure what the loads are, that go onto the track structure.

So this process is going to be led by graduate research assistant Aaron Cook.

He's involved in putting these gauges on.

-Nice to meet you.

-Hello, Aaron.

So you actually do this out on the tracks?

Yes. We install it under traffic,

which means we have flagmen out on the line protecting us,

warning us when there's a train coming, and we clear up,

let the train pass, then get back to work.

I'm getting down to a little layer under the top of the metal,

giving us a nice clean surface on which to attach the gauge.

So, the first step, we've got this track welder.

All it does is it puts a large current through.

That current will melt the tiny bit of the metal on this gauge, here.

And this gauge has got a bunch of little wires

that run inside it back and forth.

What it does is it measures

how much things move as loads go across them.

It changes its resistance, and we measure that resistance.

We know how much the rail is pushed on by the wheel.

That is clever. So the gauge down here on the side,

below the top part of the rail,

is nonetheless going to record what is happening,

what's pressing down on there, and to what extent.

So, we could reasonably expect to do that in ten minutes,

before the next train comes?

Not all of that. We usually pull off and go back on several times by this

-point in the process.

-I'm relieved,

because it was taking me quite a long time!

Well, I'm very, very grateful to you, and good luck with the work.

Thank you.

Chicago owed much of its greatness to railroads,

including the Illinois Central.

Two Illinois politicians played a vital role in bringing in the railroads,

Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.

The rapid development of the railroads was demonstrated

when, in 1865,

Abraham Lincoln was able to return home from Washington by train.

In his coffin.

Next time, I test my frontier resolve...

Abraham Lincoln split rails, and then, the United States.

..unearth Illinois' elixir of life...

I'm making apple butter.

It makes you young and good-looking, Michael!

..and consider American Civil War tactics.

Grant, as a military commander, never made the same mistake twice.

He understood that war is total war, you fight it to win,

or you don't get in.