Deering / North Line Photos

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This view looks south towards Diversey Parkway from the northeast side of the former Stewart-Warner Corporation headquarters. Stewart-Warner’s main building is to the west or right while the C&NW North Line is on the east or left. A spur curves in from the C&NW tracks across the gate and alongside the factory building. The Deering yard was to the left. The tall factory buildings in the background are on the south side of Diversey.

Stewart-Warner was primarily a C&NW customer though the Chicago Switching District listing of industries from 1956 indicates that the Milwaukee road also serviced their south building at Clybourn and Wolcott via trackage rights via the Deering Line.

In 1987 Stewart-Warner was sold and in 1989 production was moved out of Chicago to lower cost facilities in Mexico and elsewhere, forcing the closure of this site. In 1993 the Stewart-Warner headquarters and factory complex burned down in a spectacular fire. Today condos occupy this land.

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The C&NW shared switching duties in the Deering Industrial Area with the Milwaukee Road. Just north of Diversey Parkway was the Deering Yard of the C&NW which was used for sorting cars for customers in this area. We are looking south towards Diversey in this photo. The building to the left of the C&NW North Line viaduct, in the upper right, was later converted to condos. The yard was replaced by new condo buildings.

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Here’s where the C&NW entered the Deering site where it shared switching duties with the Milwaukee Road. The tracks leave the C&NW North Line on a gently curving ramp, traveling south across Wrightwood and Clybourn and towards us in this view. Note the cobblestone pavers from another era. Where the track crossed Clybourn there were the remains of frogs where they crossed double streetcar tracks into the 1980s. It appears that there were two tracks crossing Wrightwood at this spot at one time. I remember seeing a C&NW switcher traveling down the track on the left one evening during the summer of 1981 but did not have a camera with me unfortunately.

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At the southern end of the C&NW’s Deering Yard was this shed and platform. Potentially it was used as a team track for moving goods from boxcars onto platforms for transfer to trucks.

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Farther up a pair of ties blocks the track that connected the C&NW to the industries to the south of Clybourn. One wonders if they were meant to stop trains or vehicles from using the ramp? The Stewart-Warner plant is in the distance to the upper left or northwest.