Railroaders place to shoot the shit.

At the same time, people in many communities hoped that the purchase would lead to improvements at grade crossings along the former EJ&E tracks, which in the Southland run through Chicago Heights, Park Forest, Matteson, Mokena, Frankfort and New Lenox.

So far, I've seen a slight increase in east-west train traffic, though I suspect the worst is yet to come, and minimal improvements to grade crossings. In fact, the crossing at Chicago Road in Chicago Heights remains rather jolting, slowing traffic as even drivers of large sport utility vehicles put on their brakes in a suspension-saving effort.

The railroad merger has another potential consequence, one that doesn't affect rail or vehicular traffic.

I received an e-mail recently from reader Katie Armstrong, of Park Forest, who wanted to know more about a small building located where the former EJ&E line crosses Main Street in Matteson.

"Likely it remains from when residents of Joliet came by rail to shop in Matteson," she wrote. "It is special but seems uncared for, boarded up and unprotected."

As it turns out, the building was constructed in 1923, just after the Illinois Central Railroad raised its tracks above grade level and electrified its commuter trains. That work necessitated the demolition of a large depot shared by the EJ&E and the IC that also served as a meeting place for the village.

Afterward, the EJ&E built the existing building - not to handle passengers, a service the railroad had stopped providing by that time, but to house a station agent and telegraph operator, according to Ralph Eisenbrandt, who wrote a history of the EJ&E for Arcadia Publishing.

"It was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Eisenbrandt said.

He said that before freight operations were computerized starting in the 1980s, a railroad representative had to be on hand every time rail cars transferred from one line to another - in this case, from the EJ&E to the IC. The agent would check each car and log its contents prior to the switch as a way of keeping track of what freight was going where.

In the Arcadia history book on Matteson by Paul W. Jaenicke, who collaborated with Eisenbrandt on the EJ&E book, the author noted that by the 1980s, the EJ&E building on the west side of Main Street and the north side of those tracks had been abandoned.

Eisenbrandt said the building likely has no future.

"CN is probably going to tear it down in the next couple of months," he said. "They've been going down the line, tearing down old buildings they don't use anymore."

One building along the former EJ&E line that appears to be safe for now, Eisenbrandt said, is the two-story tower that marks the intersection of that line with the CSX rail line just southwest of East End Avenue and Main Street in Chicago Heights.

It's another building that served as an office for telegraph operators and station agents at an important and busy railroad junction. But like the Matteson building, that use went the way of the caboose. Eisenbrandt said the Heights building still serves as a storage area for switching equipment and other items, and it appears safe for now.

As for the Matteson building, I personally would like to see it saved and put to use somehow, but too often that's not the way things work.

While history buffs often can't do much to save historic buildings, there's something they can do to help restore the area in a smaller way - install flowers and other plants that grew here when buffalo and elk still wandered through the prairies.

Here's a great way to do that while helping a good cause - buy native plants from the Thorn Creek Audubon Society Native Plant Sale.

Not only is it a good way to spruce up your garden, but in many cases, the plants were propagated from plants that have held on in tiny prairie remnants in the Southland and have had thousands of years to get used to growing here.

(This item appeared Feb. 8, 2010, in the Southtown Star.)