Good catch. It was rare to see a GP9 and a caboose on these tracks. Normally they were used only for very long trains of more than a dozen freight car while cabooses were used for complex backup and other switching moves.
Cherry Street north of Division Street would be rebuilt and paved the following year (2000).
The steel rod was used to move the switch handle to also avoid being bitten by rats from what one of the crewmen told me. They used to live under the switch plates.
Amazing that twelve years later Big Bay Lumber still gets shipments by rail on Goose Island.
