Messages

16

Modeling / MILW LCL boxcar designations?

« on: January 13, 2008, 04:10:15 PM »

Charlie,

Got off my rear and forwarded this to some other folks who may be able to help.  I\'ll let you know if I get a response.

17

General Discussion / Bloomingdale/North Line crossing question

« on: January 02, 2008, 12:49:02 AM »

The freight track continues east from North Ave yard separate from the passenger mains, and in places I think is not always at the same full-height elevation as the passenger mains.  Two running tracks head timetable east, merge into one at Division (just past the old Chicago Fish House spur--now a Lexus dealer), and split again at Augusta as they head away from the passenger mains.  

At the point where it splits away (August and Racine), the freight alignment begins descending to ground level to reach Grand Ave. Yard.  The north track (by compass) is known as the Wall Track, and the south track is the Beer Lead.  Just east of Elston, a spur used to head off the Wall Track to reach Chicago Paperboard, and another split off at Sangamon to reach Material Service.  Material Service is more or less across the river from International Salt at the south end of the Goose Island Cherry St. Spur, but MS has received all of its stone via barge for at least the last 25 years.

The Beer Lead remained primarily to serve the Tribune and Sun-Times printing plants, but prior to the introduction of push-pull scoots, it lead to a ground-level storage yard for Wisconsin Division scoots.  Around 1980, the Tribune built its plant on the site of the former coach yard because it was next to the river, and the Tribune had dreams of receiving newsprint via its own fleet of lake boats/barges (not sure which--never seen a good reference).  The boats were never used, and everything comes in via rail.  I\'m genuinely confused as to why the Sun-Times seemed to be able to handle 6-12 cars of paper/week, and the Tribune seems to handle 20-30 or better.  Anyway, prior to moving, the Trib used to publish out of a building along the North Branch, with a separate warehouse building several blocks away.  The newsprint was moved between the two using a short stretch of the old Chicago Tunnel Company, hauling the paper in 12\" gauge cars.  Two extra rails were added to the CTC track, and the loaded cars were heavy enough to coast all the way from the warehouse down to the printing plant.  Never seen any good photos of this operation either.

The track you are looking at in the photos appears to be the Sipi metals lead.  The two tracks in the foreground with jointed rail are the freight leads out of the east end of North Ave.

18

Modeling / HO scale steel sheet piling

« on: November 23, 2007, 06:52:57 PM »

Evergreen will have some sheet products that should be close enough, especially if it won\'t stick up above the ground like the temporary retaining wall in the above photo.

19

General Discussion / circus train??

« on: November 16, 2007, 10:42:16 PM »

Now I\'m really getting OT...

Does this mean that the industries in Des Plaines north of Northwest Hwy are gone, too?  And Wheeling?  When NCS first started in 1996, there were still quite a few customers between Des Plaines and Grayslake.


I\'d expect further decline in WC local traffic under Canadian National.  The VP-Marketing at WSOR told me two years ago that his boss was going to fire him because he wasn\'t needed anymore--CN was the best marketing tool WSOR had going.  More precisely, dozens of former WC customers were calling WSOR begging for any means of delivery via WSOR because CN cut all of the high-quality service WC used to provide.

CN is an unfortunate juggernaut in the industry.

20

General Discussion / Other Chicago Terminal ops?

« on: November 12, 2007, 09:20:11 PM »

Has anyone heard how Chicago Terminal has been doing with the two former DOT Rail operations in Centex?  Just curious if traffic\'s gone up at all now that there\'s some more ambitious management.

21

General Discussion / circus train??

« on: November 12, 2007, 09:18:24 PM »

About 20 years ago now (IIRC), I saw RBBB indeed using those spurs--when it was still the Rosemont Horizon--for holding some of the cars for elephants and big cats.  It was kind of a shocker to me when I saw that all those spurs were gone as of about 10 years ago, especially in that WC was always pushing so hard to attract customers.

22

General Discussion / Skokie Line Done

« on: November 02, 2007, 10:21:14 PM »

The line you refer to is called the Weber Spur in C&NW timetables.  It was once the Weber Subdivision until it was cut back to just north of Touhy Ave.  Last year, UP delivered its last tank car to the one remaining customer, and has since placed a stop board just north of Mayfair Lumber.

UP makes it very clear that they absolutely do not want this kind of business. The line will likely sit disused for about two years, and then UP may file an abandonment petition if they feel like salvaging materials; otherwise it\'ll come out when the land value makes selling the property worthwhile.

When this area was mostly greenfields in the \'50s, quite a bit of industry located along what was originally a freight bypass, but as land prices pushed up and many of the industries simply closed, the development on this corridor largely leans away from industrial uses.  As a result, it\'s not really sustainable to recruit new industry to this line even if UP wanted to.  =(

23

General Discussion / Rails inside filtration plant

« on: September 23, 2007, 02:46:24 PM »

Most likely, the city discontinued use of bulk chlorine when it stopped using rail service.  The trend has been away from treating water with chlorine gas for many years now.

24

Modeling / North side layout in HO (warning--photo intensive)

« on: August 28, 2007, 02:05:37 PM »

Glad you enjoyed the tour.  To me, making convincing urban buildings is one of the hardest things to do in modeling because there are so few kits that are scaled to a size appropriate for railcars.

Most of the buildings start out as Walthers Cornerstone kits.  I\'ve used (from end to end) the Bralick Building, Roberts Printing, Champion Packing, American Hardware, Medusa Cement, and Armstrong Electric Motors.  Usually, I open the box and throw away the instructions and start playing with the walls.  For things like the American Hardware building, I found that if I painted it radically differently, I could really disguise its origins.  Once I\'ve finished \"opening up\" the original kit walls, I usually use foam core to make the roofs.

Now for signature pieces like International Salt or Aetna Plywood, I\'ll scratchbuild the whole thing, scaling it to fit using photographs.  I\'ve used quite a few of the Pikestuff modular cinder block walls, but nothing else that would qualify as modular.

25

General Discussion / Ops Question

« on: July 13, 2007, 06:41:56 PM »

http://www.chicagoswitching.com/v4/articles/article.asp?menu=0&locationid=4&locationname=Bloomingdale&articleid=88

Ignore the caption on the 2nd photo--it\'s quite erroneous (not General Metals, and they received cars FOR SCRAPPING, not of scrap) but it never got updated.  The 6th photo down shows the train in Treasure Island\'s parking lot.  Almost immediately after the C&E spur splits off from the Deering line, the track heads through Treasure Island.  Check Microsoft Live for great 4-angle overhead shots.

26

General Discussion / PRNOA

« on: July 03, 2007, 12:47:19 PM »

IIRC, the industry in Cary was a lumberyard.  I talked with the owner when they were having a going-out-of-business sale and he told me the whole dreadful story.  He actively used his spur to receive lumber loads, and one day the North Western took it upon itself to pull the switch.  Because the railroad never requested and he never gave permission, he filed suit, which went all the way to the US Supreme Court, and won.  The ruling established that within certain requirements, a railroad may not disconnect an active spur without permission from the shipper.  

Unfortunately, during the interim, IDOT widened Rt 14, and THEY said that since the spur wasn\'t \"active\" (nevermind the ongoing litigation) that they wouldn\'t install a railroad crossing.  So even though he won against the railroad, the state was not bound by the same laws.  He spruced the place up with a nice cash settlement from the railroad, but then lumber prices doubled and without rail service the lumberyard went under....nice that he won, too bad it didn\'t help him.

27

General Discussion / PRNOA

« on: June 29, 2007, 07:54:53 PM »

The last I knew, in the mid 90\'s, there were no customers along the old Dundee line south of Terra Cotta industries.  About 1990 or so, the track had been cut off a block or two south of the US 14 crossing--maybe before then there was still sand being shipped out?  

Anyway, the part you\'re thinking of was/is used just as an interchange yard between the Janesville-based wayfreight and the Crystal Lake-based wayfreight, and by about 1995, the track ended just before the US 14 crossing.  In the early 90\'s there was still a lumberyard just off the north connecting track that scoots used to reach McHenry, but it closed by 1995.  Honestly, I never understood why the Janesville or Elk Grove jobs didn\'t just do the work themselves, or why they didn\'t consolidate more traffic onto the Crystal Lake job.  They could have even based it out of Harvard until the yard was removed.

I never knew of a spur crossing Hicks road, so that must have been gone by the late 1980\'s.  There was one customer on that leg of the spur that received plastic pellets until about 1990 or so, but I don\'t know who it was.  On the other side of Hicks was a Weber Grill facility that I think had a siding they never used.  The only other thing down there that ever seemed to get cars was the Fuji(?)plant.  MS Live shows two cars spotted there.  Further east, Sweeney Oil used to have a spur, but it was never used.

Now, the Dundee line down to Elgin (which was originally built as broad gauge with strap-iron rail) had some scenic running in Elgin proper until about 3 years ago when it was finally abandoned.  I only ever saw one photo of it (in Pacific Rail News) and didn\'t get the issue, so if anyone has or knows of photos of the Elgin spur, I\'d be interested to see--but that\'s totally OT.

28

General Discussion / Sugar Relief late for Peerless

« on: June 28, 2007, 11:53:52 PM »

Now, after Peerless goes under due to foreign competition, I hear on the news today how Chinese-made candy has been \"deliberately contaminated\" with unsafe additives in an attempt to cut costs.  This is at the same time we\'re getting contaminated toothpaste and Thomas the Tank Engine painted with lead-based paint.

If retail chains get nervous enough, I wonder if they\'d ever consider buying from Peerless just to be sure the candy meets FDA requirements.  Would it even happen in time?

29

General Discussion / PRNOA

« on: June 28, 2007, 05:16:49 PM »

quote:Originally posted by Ian

The PRNOA runs with engines on both ends.....2 in front...2 in back...they use the Seeger/Norma connection at Deval.....

Thanks for the answer

quote:Originally posted by Ian

Cary is switched by a job based out of Elk Grove......Im not too sure what the UP switch engine based in Crystal Lake does.....

Reference above post....the True Value paint factory should still be switched out of either Janesville or Crystal Lake.  The Elk Grove yard job never went past Palatine.  The Crystal Lake wayfreight typically switches Terra Cotta industries just north of Crystal Lake--they heat-treat steel billet/bar/etc., a lumberyard (don\'t know name) next to the passenger station in McHenry, and the chemical plant in Ringwood.  Don\'t know if UP added any extra work to its job (it wasn\'t real busy), but the traffic was forwarded down from Janesville on one of the WAJA jobs.

30

General Discussion / PRNOA

« on: June 28, 2007, 01:51:51 AM »

I\'d be surprised if UP ran all the way up to Waukegan, but stranger has happened.  Do any of the folks at Chicago Terminal know?  I doubt they much care, but maybe they\'ve heard.

It\'s been since before I can remember that any local service existed between Gladstone Park and Des Plaines.  I remember chasing one of the Elk Grove jobs going up the Harvard Sub to switch such places as Sysco Foods (old Wieboldt\'s warehouse), Hines Lumber(in Mt. Prospect), Knight Engineering and Arlington Mills (both molding companies off Arthur Ave. in Arlington Heights), the Daily Herald in A.H., Fuji, and Heller Lumber.  Once in a great while, someone would have a reefer spotted opposite the Daily Herald on the MoW spur, but I think I saw that maybe four or five times.  So, those were never known to be switched from North Ave.  

In my days, nothing existed past a molding company (name unknown) near Fuji until you got to Cary.  Back in the 50\'s, the local would range much farther, but in the 80\'s and 90\'s, Cary and all points north were served by one of the WAJA turns.  Mon/Wed saw Crystal Lake, and Tues/Thurs was Beloit.  Tues/Thurs was when WACL handled the Ringwood duties, the sand pits and other traffic south of Crystal Lake having dried up in the 80\'s.  So, as close as Ringwood is to Proviso, it takes a consistent two extra days to get cars in and out.  And folks wonder why no one wants to ship via UP...