Topics

46

General Discussion / Assistance Requested-Special Movement to Morton Grove/Niles

« on: August 10, 2015, 06:47:41 PM »

I hope the Flickr sleuths on this site can help.  I am preparing a short article for The Milwaukee Railroader on changes to the former MILW freight operations in Chicago as they reprint the 2007 book The Milwaukee Road in Chicago.

Last spring I saw a picture on Flickr of a DM&E (now part of CP Rail once again) train heading south through Glenview with a piece of electrical equipment on a drop-center flatcar.  Now it seems to have disappeared when I use the search terms "Glenview" and "railroad."  I believe it was from 2013.  The destination was a spur in either Niles or Morton Grove for ComEd. 

Does anyone have details about this movement?  It would be the first local freight delivery in several decades.

Thanks

47

General Discussion / Mondelez to Lay Off Half of Workers at Rail-Served Chicago Plant

« on: July 30, 2015, 09:39:13 AM »

Mondelez (spin-off of Kraft's snack business) is laying off half of the workers at the former Nabisco South Side plant and shifting much of the production to Mexico.  It is rail-served and looking at Google Maps you can see the plant has its own TrackMobile rail car mover. 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-nabisco-mondelez-plant-0730-biz-20150729-story.html

The street address is 7300 S Kedzie Ave, Chicago, IL 60629

48

General Discussion / General Mills Closing Rail-Served Plant in West Chicago

« on: July 16, 2015, 11:59:27 AM »

The Tribune reported today that General Mills is closing its plant in West Chicago.  BNSF serves it via a line that is now stubbed just west of downtown West Chicago from Aurora.  That was once the original CB&Q mainline.

If you want to see the plant using Google Maps/Earth the address is-

General Mills Inc
704 W Washington St
West Chicago, IL 60185

Lots of industrial tracks. 

49

General Discussion / New Article-MILW Local Freight in Glenview + "MILW in Chicago" Being Reprinted

« on: June 13, 2015, 06:42:49 PM »

At the risk of sounding self-promoting I wanted to get the word out there that my latest article, "The Freight Side of Glenview," was just published in the latest edition of The Milwaukee Railroader magazine (Second Quarter, 2015).  Ten pages long with lots of historic photos including ones dating back to 1900.  It focuses on the mostly forgotten and long gone local industries in Glenview, IL, that were served by the Milwaukee Road. TMR is put out by the Milwaukee Road Historical Association.

Local hobby shops like Des Plaines Hobby carry TMR.  You can also order copies of TMR issues at www.mrha.com. 

I heard from the MRHA that my 2007 book where I was the lead author, "The Milwaukee Road in Chicago," is going to be reprinted.  The original run sold out quickly. It goes into great detail about the MILW lines in Chicago including the C&E, Deering, and Dunning with extensive photos and track diagrams. 

I do not get paid for these efforts which are a labor of love. 

Tom

50

General Discussion / Amazon Leases Former Midwest Industrial Metals Facility on Goose Island

« on: April 30, 2015, 02:48:35 PM »

This building was once Midwest Industrial Metals and it was served by the MILW and later SOO.  Later Calumet Photo operated there.  Now Amazon will occupy it.  This link will take you to a photo of Midwest Industrial Metals when it was operating and rail-served.  A SOO train is on North Branch while a boxcar is spotted on the spur inside the facility. 

From Crain's Chicago Business-

April 29, 2015
Amazon.com to put first Chicago warehouse on Goose Island

Amazon.com has leased a Goose Island warehouse in what could be the first of several smaller deals in Chicago as the e-commerce giant maneuvers closer to urban customers seeking fast delivery.
The company is taking all of a 51,970-square-foot warehouse at 1111 N. Cherry Ave., according to real estate sources.

The deal comes about six months after Seattle-based Amazon and politicians announced that the online retailer planned to enter Illinois with at least one distribution center, with plans to hire at least 1,000 full-time employees by 2017.

51

General Discussion / UP Switching Heller Lumber in Arlington Heights on Northwest Line

« on: April 03, 2015, 06:06:03 PM »

Right time, right place and I came across this UP local freight crew which had just finished up switching Heller Lumber in Arlington Heights, set the derail on the spur, threw the switch from the spur to the mainline, backed up, the proceeded east. 

The tank cars are probably from Fujifilm in Rolling Meadows.

From Morton Salt northwest to Crystal Lake there are just two active rail customers left-Fujifilm and Heller.  Off the McHenry branch there are still two UP rail customers and to the northwest there are additional ones.

This image is a low-res version to fit the size limitations. 

52

General Discussion / Looking for Photos of Glenview, IL, LOCAL Milwaukee Road Freight Operations

« on: March 29, 2015, 11:22:25 AM »

Hi-

I am researching a forthcoming article on the Milwaukee Road's local freight operations in Glenview, IL, for The Milwaukee Railroader.  I am looking for photos of the MILW switching local industries in Glenview which at one time included Rugen Hardware, Hines Lumber, Baxter Labs, Lutter Brick, and Glenview Materials among others.  I have checked Flikr and found a couple that show freight cars in the background plus a good aerial photo. 

I found a few photos also at the Glenview History Center but they do not show actual trains working the industries on the spurs-just empty spur tracks for the most part.

Does anyone know of any good photos they can link me to?

Thanks
Tom

53

Modeling / Modeling the C&E on Chicago's North Side in N-Scale-Belmont & Lakewood Area

« on: March 08, 2015, 09:28:05 AM »

It's been a while since I posted about my N-scale layout featuring the Milwaukee Road's C&E Line circa 1971.  C&E stands for Chicago & Evanston and the Milwaukee Road once went all the way to Evanston.  Its nicknames are the Lakewood line (north of North Avenue) and Kingsbury Line (south of North Avenue). I model two sections, the first on Lakewood from Wellington north to Belmont, and the second one from Eddy Street north to Waveland Avenue, crossing Clark and Addison with Wrigley Field modeled in part where it faces west.

They really are more dioramas than a true layout though trains can operate over them.  I hope to fill the gap one day between these two sections with a new layout that features the CTA line crossing over the Milwaukee Road by Racine Avenue. 

Everything is modeled from scratch and based on historic photos of the areas.  Many of the buildings are now gone.

In this attached picture it looks south from Belmont Avenue and down along Lakewood.  The structure on the right or west is a scrapyard which is long gone while the large complex farther south and across the street at the SW corner of Fletcher and Lakewood is the old Best Brewing.  Both were rail served.  I stretched it a little bit since Best Brewing went out of business in the early 1960s and my layout is set ten years later.

On the left or east at the SE corner of Belmont and Lakewood is a former factory that was rail served at one time though not by the early 1970s.  Just past it to the south is the former Reed Candy factory which was rail served into the early 1980s by the Milwaukee Road.  The buildings were torn down in the late 1980s and replaced by the "Sweeterville" condo complex.  After the line was cut back once again the railroad saved enough track about a block north of Belmont to use as a tail track to back down the Reed spur-much as was the case when the track was cut back to Diversey a short time later and enough tail track was saved to access the Peerless spur.  Reed received inbound shipments of corn syrup and sugar by rail. Wrigley acquired Reed and moved production to another facility. 

The overhead and cross buck type grade crossing signals are operational.  They were purchased from NJ International.  The grade crossings road surfaces represent a mixture of simulated concrete slabs where the line crossed streets with heavier traffic like in Belmont or timbers for the more lightly used crossings.

I hope to post more photos soon to try to add fresh content to this site. 

54

General Discussion / Lutter Brick & Tile in Glenview-Former MILW Customer

« on: February 19, 2015, 06:13:15 PM »

Came across this history of Lutter Brick & Tile which was located on the north side of Glenview, north of Chestnut and between Lehigh and Waukegan Roads.  The clay pit was later converted into a landfill after it was closed and is now athletic fields. 

http://www.journal-topics.com/lifestyles/article_bc96214e-b29c-11e2-8052-001a4bcf6878.html

Here's a view of the locomotive that was used in the pit. 

http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/glenview001/id/259

Glenview had one time had several freight customers including Hines Lumber in downtown Glenview, just north of Glenview Road which was reached by a long spur that traveled east of the passenger station including some street running. 

Tom

55

General Discussion / Time Capsule-Video of Chicago in 1969

« on: January 24, 2015, 07:21:36 PM »

Though it is not specific to railroads in Chicago I thought folks might want to check out this video which was converted from Super 8 film taken in 1969 (no, I did not shoot it though I feel old sometimes!  ).  There are railroad shots scattered throughout.

http://chicagoist.com/2015/01/18/chicagoist_weekend_theater_a_trip_t.php

Downtown Chicago changed very little from 1969 until the building boom of the 1980s.  The main exception was the Sears Tower of course.

56

General Discussion / Chicago Tribune 2015 Calendar Features C&NW Customers by Lake Shore Drive

« on: December 28, 2014, 11:59:26 AM »

The Chicago Tribune included as an insert in the Sunday print edition a 2015 with many vintage photos of Chicago.  It's worth picking up the paper if just for the photos included in the calendar.

This photo is a scan of the front cover which depicts the opening of the bridge connecting North and South Lake Shore Drive in 1937.  Note the infamous S-curve which would not be replaced until decades later.  Photo also shows the Tribune riverfront warehouse for receiving paper via ships, the Curtiss candy plant which was rail served by the C&NW, and a coal yard.  Also shown are strings of boxcars on what I believe would be an extension of Carroll Avenue between the river and Ogden Slip-anyone know what that factory with the two chimneys was? 

57

General Discussion / Video of North Avenue Yard Shows Diversity of Freight Cars, MOW Equipment

« on: November 06, 2014, 06:25:29 PM »

I took this video last week while returning in the mid-afternoon from a meeting in Chicago.  It shows the diversity of freight cars and MOW equipment with the concrete ties.  If you look carefully you can see a hopper poking out from the shed at the Morton Salt plant and the gondola behind the trees in Sipi's parking lot spur.  Looks like the Tribune is having cars blocked for them nowadays at the Grand Avenue yard instead. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE0wtkv8vgQ&feature=em-upload_owner

My guess is that the covered hoppers are for Morton Salt since I was told that UP brings in and out hoppers for the upper level spur at Blommer off the West Line instead of using a zig-zag, back and forth movement on ladder tracks at the throat of the Ogilvy station to move from the Northwest Line to the West Line as in the past. 

Does anyone know for sure the purpose of the black tank car that is frequently spotted on the ground level spur to Blommer, just south of Grand Avenue?  Last week I saw a tank truck next to it so my guess is that something is being transloaded from rail to truck at that location-if so, that was resourceful of UP to find additional traffic for a mostly idle spur. 

58

General Discussion / Avondale Line Aerial Photo

« on: October 30, 2014, 07:14:47 PM »

Following up on the recent discussion, here's a view from Historic Aerials of the C&NW Avondale Line where it came off the main line near Addison and continued west to the ComEd plant at the river. 

59

General Discussion / Gondola Parked on Sipi Metals Spur

« on: August 22, 2014, 08:08:08 AM »

I noticed yesterday that a gondola was parked on Sipi's spur in the fenced off parking lot.  It's the first time in a long time I have seen Sipi get rail service. 

60

General Discussion / US Brewing Company (Brand Brewing Company) 2525 and 2530 N. Elston Avenue

« on: August 14, 2014, 04:41:01 PM »

I passed the site of the former US Brewing site on Elston a couple of weeks ago and noted that it is still vacant with some rubble strewn about.  It's a shame since the developer pushed so hard to demolish the historic structure (served by the C&NW with a track still on its north side) despite community opposition to put up a big box HH Gregg store there. 

Gone but not forgotten...

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