Topics

121

General Discussion / New All-Time List of C&NW/UP NW Line Industries

« on: June 13, 2009, 12:35:16 PM »

Guys:

Looking for feedback on this first pass website.  For years it\'s been obvious that the remaining industries still served by rail along the C&NW/UP Northwest Line are rapidly disappearing so I created this compilation to document the last ones as well as industries that are now memories.

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

There are a lot of blanks in the spreadsheet as you can see.  Any help you can provide with filling in those blanks would be appreciated.  Please post to this forum so others can see the updates-and it might create some lively discussion. Also, if you have any photos you would like to add let me know.

I limited coverage to the point where the Northwest Line diverges from the North Line at the Clybourn station out to the Wisconsin border past Harvard.

Indicate if the industry was in place prior to the Northwest Expressway (now known as the Kennedy Expressway) construction.  Many rail served industries were eliminated during this 1950s Eisenhower era project.

I created this website since it is off-topic from the main charter of the Chicago Switching website which is focused strictly on freight operations within Chicago itself.  

Tom

122

General Discussion / Missing Track at South End of Kingsbury?

« on: June 03, 2009, 06:47:26 PM »

When was the track that extended south past Kingsbury Street and almost to Division Street removed and/or paved over?  It was the location where the gondola was placed in the recent past during the firewood move.

I\'m surprised Chicago Terminal allowed it-or maybe they are unaware that the adjoining property owner is now using it.  Even if the land underneath was sold Chicago Terminal should have still retain an easement as this stretch was not abandoned and was part of the tracks that were conveyed by CP to Chicago Terminal according to their map.

It eliminates another \"cool\" place for Chicago Terminal to park some freight cars as well as a possible transload site.

123

General Discussion / Special movement for Chicago Terminal?

« on: May 29, 2009, 03:06:56 PM »

I noticed a drop-center flatcar at the North Avenue yard this morning with a piece of heavy electrical equipment on it.  In years past ComEd received special equipment for their facility about two blocks SE of the Division/Halsted intersection via rail when the tracks still were in place south of Division.  The ComEd site bordered the former Milw Road/Soo Line tracks alongside the eastern edge.

Potentially Chicago Terminal could take the flatcar to the end of the tracks just past Kingsbury and north of Division Street for ComEd to load onto a truck for the short hop to their facility.

If anyone is in the area over the next few days swing by Kingsbury and see if the drop-center flatcar is indeed spotted at the end of the track where that gondola was last year.

124

General Discussion / Tribune Cites Finkl, SIpi as Top Polluters

« on: April 06, 2009, 08:30:53 PM »

The Chicago Tribune featured a cover story on how air pollution may impact children in schools located near these factories.  Both Finkl Steel and Sipi Metals-customers of Chicago Terminal-were mentioned as being top polluters.

125

General Discussion / Polar Express on CTR?

« on: December 03, 2008, 06:43:10 PM »

Any news or rumors about Chicago Terminal running a Polar Express passenger excursion over its tracks this winter?  During the run up to Diversey and back last summer the owner of parent Iowa Pacific mentioned potentially running a Polar Express train over the tracks.

126

General Discussion / YouTube Video Posted of CTR Passenger Train

« on: August 30, 2008, 11:00:13 PM »

I just uploaded video taken with my camcorder of the Chicago Terminal (CTR) passenger train heading back from the former Peerless Confectionary spur on August 23, 2008.  It was taken from the platform of the Caritas private car which was shoved south down Lakewood by the CTR SW-8 locomotive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DYywAJUEXc

YouTube forced me to compress it to CD-ROM quality to fit given its length.  I also stripped out the audio since there were private comments made by the Iowa Pacific owner in the background that he probably did not intend to be posted.

The video runs for just under ten minutes and it covers the trip from North Lakewood Avenue south of Diversey Parkway to where the train stopped north of Altgeld in one of the parking lots for the Lakeshore Athletic Club.

127

General Discussion / Goose Island Photo in New Trains Magazine

« on: August 01, 2008, 03:58:00 PM »

The September 2008 issue of Trains magazine features a two-page color photo spread of a Soo Line train on Goose Island in 1989.

The location of the train is on the northern end of Goose Island, just south of the Cherry Street bridge and at the point where the track to the Division Street team tracks branches east from the \"mainline\" which continues down dirt-paved Cherry Street.  It\'s being blocked by trailers and a tractor from Midwest Industrial Metals is moving the trailers out of the way.  

Midwest Industrial Metals was located at the northeast corner of Bliss and Cherry on the south end of Goose Island so they must have been storing trailers at the northern end too.  Midwest Industrial Metals was a rail-served Soo Line customer and it operated out of a former Lissner facility.

You can see another perspective on this Trains photo with one I took in 1988 at a similar location and also looking north.

http://www.chicagoswitching.com/v5/articles/article.asp?articleid=18

The switch in the photo shows the tracks lined for the Division Street team track lead though the boxcar is being pulled by the MP15.  Normally cars were pushed to the team tracks then pulled out since there was no runaround track between this cutoff and the team tracks that ended just north of Division Street by Hickory.  I wonder if the crew is waiting for the trucks to move to throw the switch that will send the train straight ahead, perhaps to Big Bay Lumber?

128

General Discussion / Video of CP Rail Working Peerless On YouTube

« on: July 01, 2008, 04:10:44 PM »

I put a pair of videos taken with my camcorder of a CP Rail job crossing Clybourn Avenue and later switching out Peerless Confectionary from December 29, 2005, onto YouTube over the weekend.  The video quality is not up to professional standards but it still gives viewers a look at how the operation was done just a year and a half prior to Peerless shutting down.

Pay special attention in the video clip of the train crossing busy Clybourn Avenue and the clueless driver of the white SUV who does not move out of the way for the oncoming train!  

At Diversey Avenue you will see vehicles pause for the train as it pulls an empty out of the Peerless spur by coupling onto the new load.  The engine pokes onto Peerless to the end of the rails to give it enough clearance and though the tracks no longer cross Diversey motorists stop just in case.  

Use a combination of the search terms: clybourn, CP Rail, Peerless, Chicago, Lakewood, Diversey to find the videos on YouTube.

129

General Discussion / More Changes around former C&E North Line

« on: May 04, 2008, 01:25:11 PM »

I noticed recently that the building at the southeast corner of Belmont and Lakewood is being gutted and converted into housing.  This building used to be a furniture factory in decades past and it was located along the spur to Reed Candy.  This building had a concrete loading dock through 2007 that followed the contours of a long-gone curving track. Previously the former scrap metal facility across the street was torn down and replaced by condos (of course).

Not only are the tracks gone except for two spots north of Diversey Parkway but virtually every former industrial building in this former rail corridor has been converted to residential use or torn down.

50 feet of isolated Milwaukee Road track a block or so north at School Street is now enclosed in a chain link fence by the current property owner which uses the area as a private parking lot.  The other site of isolated Milwaukee Road C&E North Line tracks are where two pairs of rails emerge just outside the northwest corner of Wrigley Field where they cross the sidewalk on the south side of Waveland and break through the pavement on the street.

130

General Discussion / New Trains Magazine Features Street Running

« on: March 01, 2008, 09:31:12 AM »

The newest issue of Trains magazine has a feature article on freight trains running on city streets.  

Interesting article though for some reason there are no photos or mentions of the former Milwaukee Raod lines on Chicago\'s North Side.  Chicago is simply listed in one chart as having street trackage.

131

General Discussion / \"Urban Scar\" Website Features C&E North Line

« on: June 08, 2007, 10:10:03 AM »

Check out this interesting website.  He mentions stumbling upon the former Milwaukee Road C&E line at Melrose Avenue while constructing houses on the lot.  Good aerial shot pieced together from Google Earth showing the C&E Line ROW north of Belmont and past Wrigley.

http://www.ascentstage.com/archives/2006/05/urban_scar_tiss.html

Tom, you might want to send a message onto the webmaster since his links to the Chicago Switching website are broken.

132

General Discussion / Blog Entry re: Goose Island CP Rail Operation

« on: May 25, 2007, 06:08:05 PM »

Not sure if people saw this blog entry...or the the author is already a participant on this website.

http://www.raildepot.com/wordpress/?p=21

133

General Discussion / New Milwaukee Railroader Feature Issue on Chicago

« on: March 31, 2007, 09:06:42 PM »

As a heads-up the Milwaukee Road Historical Association (MRHA) just mailed out a new issue focused on the Milwaukee Road in Chicago.  It\'s the first time since 1980 that the MRHA has showcased Chicago to this extent.  Lots of good photos and maps.  

It\'s a must-have for any fan of the former Milwaukee Road freight and passenger operations in and around Chicago.  Anything Chicago related tends to sell out quickly.

In June a book length special issue will come out from the MRHA going into much more detail about the Chicago Terminal operations of the Milwaukee Road in the Windy City.

You can order copies via www.mrha.com

134

General Discussion / Navigating Surface Transportation Board Website

« on: March 20, 2007, 07:41:49 PM »

From time to time others on this forum express difficulty in using the Surface Transportation Board (STB) website at www.stb.dot.gov.  

The path I use is as follows:

1. Bring up www.stb.dot.gov
2. Hold down the \"E-LIBRARY\" selection with your mouse once you are at the main page
3. Choose either \"Decisions & Notices\" or \"Filing\" and let go of the mouse
4. Double-click on the document or posting you wish to view, including attachments

You can then page through the recent documents, including ones by the Chicago Terminal Railroad.  It\'s actually easier than using the search feature which I only use for old documents.

135

General Discussion / Chicago Terminal Acquires More UP & CP Lines

« on: March 19, 2007, 09:13:56 AM »

A new posting on the Surface Transportation Board (www.stb.dot.gov) website shows that the Chicago Terminal Railroad acquired the Elk Grove Village, IL, industrial park trackage of both the UP and CP Rail.  Detailed maps accompany the filing.

From my own limited exploration of this area, quite a few of the tracks are out-of-service and weed covered.  Hopefully they can recruit new business back to rail from truck.