Lee Lumber moving

[haggar]

Lee Lumber will be moving to 2587 N. Elston  over near the Home Depot in May.  Another loss of a rail served customer.

Joe

[Brianbobcat]

For a while I thought you meant Big Bay.  Here's Lee's website confirming it: http://www.leelumber.com/igsbase/igstemplate.cfm/SRC=SP/SRCN=contactus1/GnavID=20  When was the last time that Lee got a lumber shipment via rail though?  I pass by there on the Metra a lot, and can't remember seeing ANY railcars there in a long while.  The materials yard there that had been a Prairie yard and closed for several years has reopened as Terrell Materials, but while they're restocked with sand and whatnot, again, I never saw any rail deliveries there in many years.

Anyone have more specific timeframes on last rail deliveries or potential future ones?  Any photos from that spur?

[TBurke]

Thanks for the update.  I was not even sure Lee Lumber was still in business for the last year or so since there appeared to be no activity, rail related or otherwise, on that top level.  It has probably been two or more years since I saw a bulkhead flatcar on their spur.

And Mayfair Lumber just went out of business last year, another rail-served customer.

That means there are no rail-served UP customers on the Northwest Line from Morton Salt north until Arlington Heights where Heller Lumber still gets rail service from the UP.  I am not counting Sipi since they are served by the Chicago Terminal-if they even ship or receive by rail anymore.  There's a team track in AH alongside Davis Street that was put in during the early 2000s to replace spurs that were severed and paved over but I have never seen a frieght car on it.

[cnwnorthline]

Isn't Alpha Bakery switched off this line?

-Matt

[TBurke]

Alpha Baking is on the west side and not on the C&NW/UP Northwest Line.

From their website-

5001 W Polk St  Chicago, IL 60644
(773) 261-6000

[cnwnorthline]

This was the facility I was talking about:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=chicago+IL&ll=41.921098,-87.741293&spn=0.00114,0.002642&hnear=Chicago,+Cook,+Illinois&gl=us&t=h&z=19

-Matt

[D. Kaniuk]

That bakery (they make Gonella bread) is located on the Cragin industrial lead, near Cicero & Palmer. The Cragin Industrial lead runs from Mayfair (Cicero & Montrose) to Armitage, near Pacific Junction. Until Metra removed the diamond. the line continued south to Lake st (40th st C&NW Yards).
From Grand Ave (near Cicero) to Lake St, the line was paralleled by the BRC.
Currently, the bakery is the only customer on that line, it is switched Monday-Wednesday-Friday. The train comes out of North Ave yard, usually around 10am, gets to Milwaukee around 11:00am and returns around 1:pm.
Attached are pictures from April 2010 of the train.

[SlowFreight]

I didn't realize Prairie had left.

This is a little bit OT...Call me crazy, but it seems like the Cragin sub should have a future as a front door for WSOR. They're limited to 2 trains/day by Metra ostensibly because of the backup move between Pacific Junction and the BRC. This would work IFF the former at-grade crossing could be replaced with a flyover, and when I scaled it out, it looks like a 2% grade (a la St. Charles Air Line) would be feasible with minimal bridge work--less, if Metra would cooperate with undercutting the MD-W mainline.

I'd think this would be doing everyone a favor...get rid of the under-used crossing at Cragin and replace it with one power switch (the Mayfair plant already has a power crossover, and you could salvage the switch--and probably some of the circuits--currently used to connect the Cragin lead to the UP) and add 1-3 power switches on the BRC (don't know if the BRC mains are bi-directional). Not sure how hard it would be for WSOR to switch the bakery using a road train, but the descending grade would be finished just south of it so the bakery track wouldn't need reconfiguring necessarily. But this would easily double the traffic WSOR could market to Chicago if they could add extra trains.

Cragin used to see WEPX coal trains, Wisconsin Div. trains headed to the GT, etc., so the rail should still be 112 lb/yard, even if the ties are shot.

[Brianbobcat]

Currently, the bakery is the only customer on that line, it is switched Monday-Wednesday-Friday. The train comes out of North Ave yard, usually around 10am, gets to Milwaukee around 11:00am and returns around 1:pm.
Attached are pictures from April 2010 of the train.

This was uncanny timing.  I've been taking the train into the city for a long time, and regularly for that past 3 years, but last friday I saw something new at around 11am.  My Metra train was approaching Clybourn when it passed a single covered hopper (probably the wrong name) being pulled by a UP engine.  It was moving quite slowly and never caught up to us as it headed inbounds.  The only cars I knew of like that were for Morton Salt so I had no idea where it was coming form.  Now I know it came from Alpha Baking.  Thanks!

[TBurke]

It would be interesting to see if UP has tacked a surcharge onto deliveries to Alpha.  They did that to the Crafty Beaver lumber yard and Farley Candy in Skokie in the 1990s on the Skokie Valley Subdivision after it was severed from Oakton South.  I want to say it was a $400/car surcharge to discourage the continued use of rail service. 

Has UP filed to abandon the remains of the Cragin Line?  I'm surprised if they have not.  It must be a money loser for them.  They probably burn as much in fuel going to Alpha and back as they get in revenue.

[D. Kaniuk]

The City of Chicago wants the Cragin line for the Mid City Transit Way. The Transit line will be either a L line or a truck only expressway. Plans are not clear. In the plan, the Mid City Transit runs from Mayfair, along the Cragin line , along the BRC to 79thm then turn east and terminate at the Dan Ryan expressway.This plan has been around for a long time.

[Brianbobcat]

The former Lee Lumber building is being repurposed into UHaul Self Storage Units.  While I can't imagine it will use any rail, at least the tracks will probably stick around for now.  I toured the site and neighboring Terrell Materials several months back, and discovered that the two southern most rails are fully welded rails, while the two that house the grates for the concrete materials and that lead to Lee, are smaller, non-welded rails.  There were also property steaks that seem to indicate those two rails belong on the business' property, while the welded rails are probably UP MOW property.

[cnwnorthline]

Speaking of lumber companies in Chicago...

Where's the Edna lumber this job would switch:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/82121756@N02/9226221846/

-Matt