More history gone

[GM]

Going over the Ohio Feeder Ramp to the Kennedy on Sunday I noticed the UP is tearing up the old CNW yard that was by the Tribune Printing Plant. Only a couple of tracks left going to Blommer Chocolate. All the ties were stacked up and the track was gone. The lead still looked like it exists to the Tribune Printing Plant. Does anyone know if they are ending service to the Trib? Otherwise it looks like the North Ave yard will bear all traffic for the area. I can\'t imagine them jamming condos in that space but anything is possible with the development going on in those areas lately.

Some more downtown Chicago freight history disappearing.


GM

[TBurke]

That probably explains why the North Avenue Yard seems so congested these days with all of those boxcars.  Seems like a lot of extra work for the UP crews which will probably have to make multiple trips to move the same number of boxcars in and out of the Freedom Center.

The Tribune\'s print business is down like all newspapers but as far as I know they have no plans to relocate from the Freedom Center printing press between Grand and Chicago Avenues.

It\'s another case of photograph it no matter how ordinary it seems now since tomorrow it could disappear given freight tracks and yards around Chicago.

On a more positive note I noticed last Friday that Blommer Chocolate had freight cars on both of its two level spurs.  The lower level spur used to go months without a freight car.  On top were pressurized hoppers and below was a tank car and another hopper.

[cnwnorthline]

Thanks for the update!  If anybody is interested MSN Virtual Earth has pictures of this area being switched by UP.  Take a bit of time moving around the area and viewing it from differant angles and you\'ll see a few shots of UP making its way down and moving in the yard.  Keep the updates and pictures coming!

-Matt

[cnwnorthline]

Hi,

The UP seems to be fixing up its North Ave Yard.  It looks nice.  Perhaps this is because it is playing a more important role now.

-Matt

[JohnColeman]

It looks like the UP has pulled up one set of rails going from North Ave yard to the Tribune yard.  I saw crews out on Friday morning, but it looked like they were replacing ties on the eastern most track of rails.  As of this afternoon, the western track is gone leaving only the eastern one!  

Guess they didn\'t need to maintain two tracks between those locations since the odds of trains needing to pass each other are pretty slim at this point.  Still, another bit of history gone...

[TBurke]

It amazed me for years that the C&NW disconnected the spur into Material Service along the same line.  They now receive building materials via barge only.  You would think it would be a natural rail served customer or that Material Service would want to keep their options open much like International Salt did across the river on Goose Island.

When the river silted up so much that shipments of salt by water were no longer possible International Salt at least was able to dig up its then muddy spur and resume rail shipments in the 1980s.  In 1991 North Branch was rebuilt and the dirt-paved street was replaced by concrete with an all new spur for International (and later, AKZO) Salt.

They ordered one delivery by rail per year prior to that time to legally keep the Milwaukee Road from abandoning this service I was told by crews back then.

Perhaps the Tribune\'s business is down so much that fewer deliveries are needed of newsprint.  Seems like there are more rounds of layoffs each month at the Tribune Companies since Sam Zell took it private last year.