Topics

106

General Discussion / Scanned Milwaukee Road Track Diagram-Goose Island (Northern Half)-1955

« on: September 29, 2011, 08:57:52 PM »

Note the changes from 1955 to 1971. 

The Excelsior Steel Furnace Corporation north of Division Street by the yard was still standing into the late 1980s as shown in this view.

http://chicagoswitching.com/v6/articles/article.asp?articleid=86

Nick Buecher & Sons on North Branch became National By-Products.  This photo dates from 1988.

http://chicagoswitching.com/v6/articles/picturedisplay.asp?photograph=../../$library/Goose_Island/tb_GooseIslandOps_1989_07.jpg

107

General Discussion / Scanned Milwaukee Road Track Diagram-Goose Island (Northern Half)-1971

« on: September 23, 2011, 08:40:36 PM »

Note the incredible density of tracks at the Division Street Yard in 1971.

108

General Discussion / Scanned Milwaukee Road Track Diagram-Goose Island (Southern Half)-1971

« on: September 23, 2011, 08:34:58 PM »

South half of a 1971 Milwaukee Road Engineering Department Track Diagram.  North half will be posted next.

109

General Discussion / Milwaukee Road Track Diagram-Deering Line 1955

« on: September 22, 2011, 08:45:49 PM »

The latest scan from original Milwaukee Road track diagrams.  Compare this 1955 version to the 1970 version I uploaded earlier. 

Here's a photo of one of the spurs on the old Deering Line which originally served the FP Smith Wire & Iron Works as shown on the 1955 diagram off Medill.  The 1970 track diagram indicates that the spur was no longer in service.

http://chicagoswitching.com/v6/articles/article.asp?articleid=45

FP Smith was once the largest fire escape manufacturer in the Midwest.  It later relocated to Northlake, IL, and renamed itself the FP Smith Wire Cloth Company.  When researching the Deering Line article in 2005 for The Milwaukee Railroader magazine it the company was still in business and even featured an old drawing of their original Chicago location on their website.  Now it has disappeared and its old URL fpsmith.com leads to the McNichols Company with a Des Plaines location but nothing in Northlake.  Perhaps one of the chicagoswitching.com sleuths can find out what happened to it. 

The Chester Street Yard at one time served the offline customer Atlantic Brewing.  Chester Street was the old name for Medill. 

110

General Discussion / Scanned Milwaukee Road Maps-Chicago's North Side

« on: September 20, 2011, 07:35:21 PM »

Not sure how many people saw this upload since the forum crashed soon after I posted it so I am putting it back up.  This document is a scan of a Milwaukee Road engineering department track plan from 1970.  It shows the Deering Line which once served the IH Deering Harvester plant and later Cotter & Company north of Fullerton. 

In 1984 the Deering Line was officially abandoned west of Ashland Avenue.  Tracks were in place and not officially abandoned between Ashland and McLean up to 1991 when Dominick Street was rebuilt and the Deering Line was cut back to where it ends today, at Dominick and McLean. 

http://chicagoswitching.com/v6/articles/article.asp?articleid=49

In time I will scan more track plans and post them.

111

General Discussion / Updated All-Time List for UP/C&NW Northwest Line

« on: July 24, 2011, 06:37:44 PM »

Guys-

Thanks to recent input from Rich Taylor I was able to identify and add a number of rail-served industries on the UP/C&NW Northwest Line, past and present.

https://sites.google.com/site/cnwnorthwestline/

If some are still overlooked please let me know.

Tom

112

General Discussion / Chicago Terminal Report 5/26/2011

« on: May 26, 2011, 05:27:33 PM »

I had a chance to drive around the Chicago Terminal service area today and noticed two trucks unloading wood products outside of Big Bay Lumber on Goose Island in the middle of Cherry Street-I hope that is not a sign of things to come.

113

General Discussion / New Book About Milwaukee Road Line to Evanston

« on: February 05, 2011, 10:21:57 AM »

A new book just came out entitled \"Competing Rails-The Milwaukee Road\'s Legacy in Evanston and Wilmette.\"  It contains a lot of great information about the C&E line along with extensive track diagrams, maps, and photos.

The Competing Rails title comes from the fact that the Milwaukee Road competed early on for passengers with the L and the North Shore Line between Wilmette and Chicago.  

The book is published by the Shore Line Historical Society and costs $29.95.  www.shore-line.org.  I contributed some of the maps and track diagrams that were incorporated into the book.

114

General Discussion / Chicago Terminal Action 12/21

« on: December 21, 2010, 09:44:01 PM »

I noticed today that Sipi Metals had one of Chicago Terminal\'s gondolas labeled for AOK on their spur with a tarp over the top.

The Chicago Terminal crew pulled an empty gondola from alongside General Iron Industries back across the Chicago River, placing it on the siding in the old Mill Yard (near the Metra tracks and parallel to Sipi Metals).

The crew then was busy clearing the switch points of snow where the Bloomingdale Line joined the Mill Yard tracks, with a boxcar being shoved ahead of the locomotive.  It was paused just east of the switch and west of the river.  I assume it was for Big Bay Lumber.

115

General Discussion / No Guesses so Far For New Mystery Photo???

« on: May 11, 2010, 12:13:38 PM »

Not sure if people noticed or not, but the Mystery Photo feature has been brought back with the new version of chicagoswitching.com  Check it and send in your best guess via the forum section.

116

Modeling / Model Railroader to Feature Kingsbury Line Again

« on: May 03, 2010, 07:07:03 PM »

Are any of the contributors to this website going to be featuring their layouts in a future Model Railroader magazine article?  I was asked recently to contribute slides of trains operating on Kingsbury Street for an upcoming article on modeling the Kingsbury Line.  MR did not say whose layout will be used or if they are making one from scratch as a demonstration layout.

Looks like they will be using three of my photos from circa 1989-1990.

It will be the third time that the Kingsbury Line (aka C&E Line) will be featured in MR-April 1975 and May of 1998.

117

General Discussion / City of Chicago Rebuttal to Andrew Morris Filing

« on: April 30, 2010, 07:13:03 PM »

The Surface Transportation Board posted an interesting rebuttal today from the City of Chicago challenging points made by one Andrew Morris in a March filing with the STB.  From reading the rebuttal the City is apparently referring to an earlier filing by Morris supporting the Chicago Terminal Railroad in which he suggests potential rail shippers along Kingsbury among other things.

Go to www.stb.dot.gov to see the City of Chicago rebuttal.  

I could not find the filing by Morris against the City of Chicago\'s adverse abandonment petition on the STB\'s website.  

Does anyone know who Andrew Morris is?

118

General Discussion / New Website-C&NW Northwest Line All-Time List

« on: December 30, 2009, 10:51:40 AM »

I put together a new website recently which documents the former and current freight customers along the C&NW/UP Northwest Line.  There are a lot of gaps and I look forward to your input to fill them in.

The coverage zone goes from Clybourn Junction north to the Wisconsin state line which is somewhat out of the scope for Chicago Switching.

http://sites.google.com/site/cnwnorthwestline/

I put it together when I realized that spurs and industries were disappearing at a rapid rate along the Northwest Line.

119

General Discussion / CTR Crews Applying Stickers to Gondolas

« on: September 04, 2009, 01:36:02 PM »

Yesterday about 4PM I noticed a Chicago Terminal two-person crew in the Mill Yard applying silver colored stickers to the end of the gondolas stored there.  New identifying numbers or marks?

120

General Discussion / Chicago Terminal Fights Back-STB Response

« on: July 01, 2009, 08:57:59 PM »

The Chicago Terminal filed their own  rebuttal to the City of Chicago\'s adverse abandonment petition with the Surface Transportation Board.  The City of Chicago wants to force the Chicago Terminal to vacate its line north of Clybourn and the section on Kingsbury south from the Goose Island lead.

Interestingly, CT reveals that they are recruiting a new shipper on Goose Island in this filing and have others in mind.

http://www.stb.dot.gov/filings/all.nsf/ba7f93537688b8e5852573210004b318/01b5f5f08f0264e3852575e500684f77?OpenDocument