Re: Elba Steve Question - City of Flushing Long Lost Memory
I lived in Flushing from January 1969, until April of 1988....exception, February 1980-September of 1982 I lived near Durand, but I still used Flushing as my entertainment town. In answer to your question,no, I never seen any "stranded" railroad car. I have in my collection of pictures a couple of photo's of the last railcar move out of that spur which was a box car of lumber that came down that track and doubled back north across main street into what was formerly known as Flushing Lumber co (now where the Bueches Grocery Store sets). That lumber company was owned by a real great guy named John Bulger. There was a very short run around section of tracks beside where the elevator you speak of sets. The spur came down the hill, and doubled back just east of where that little icecream place sets now. At one time, that was the office of Flushing Fuel Oil company, and they had 2 or 3 fuel oil tanks on that sight. Anyway, the last switch that I was ever aware of was around 1978. I would have to research my photos to get the exact date. Shortly after that happened, Flushing lumber co stopped having rail service, and my brother was hired to remove their piece of the spur from Main street north. It was about 150 feet long. I don't recall exactly when the trackage was removed from the initial eastward spur from behind S&M Lumber to the elevator, but, I never seen any grain hoppers at the elevator the entire time I lived there. The owner of the elevator was Jim (his last name escapes me right now) and they had a son that went on to be a Flushing cop. Back with the story about the last box car move, I remember talking to the GTW crew that did the move. They were really skeptical about that spur, as it was somewhat buried under ground from about the oil company to the elevator, and the double back trackage to the elevator had half of the ties rotted. They used a GP-9 for power, and moved about 1 mph through the whole process of bringing it in, and removing it about 5 days later. I'll look for the picture...I recall posting it here several years ago when I started using this site. It's in my Photobucket album, but I can't retrieve it because I never gave in to their "new policy" of paying for posting a couple of years ago. Anyway, I stand on my word that to the best of my knowledge, that the elevator never used any rail service while I was a flushing resident. One more note, S&M lumber was a good GTW customer back in the 70's and 80's. They received a lot of cars of lumber usually in box cars.
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