MP 15 switcher

[GM]

Just wondering if anyone knows the routine for which engine serves Goose Island/Lakewood. The last few weeks I saw one with the old Milwaukee Road colors servicing the area and yesterday I noticed a new one at the yard by Morton Salt with a Canadian Pacific paint job. They seem to rotate over time. Do they get reassigned to new duties in different areas or just in for routine maintenance?

What route do the engines/freight cars come into that yard? Via the metra tracks leading into Union Station? The Bloomingdale line is no longer an option for the CP engine? It must travel over UP tracks?

Thanks.

GM

[TBurke]

CP Rail rotates locomotives on a monthly basis per FRA maintence requirements.  They are shuttled in over the Metra/UP Northwest Line from the Bensenville Yard ultimately.  Crews are taxied in.  Prior to 2000 CP/Soo Line trains used the former Bloomingdale Line to reach this easternmost trackage.

Except for holidays the local CP Rail switch job normally works Tuesdays and Thursdays, with a run to Peerless as needed in the late morning, then working its way back to Goose Island for Big Bay Lumber, and bringing full gondolas back from General iron Industries.  From what I have seen they leave Sipi Metals for last, on the way back to the UP North Avenue Yard.

The MP15ACs are former Milwaukee Road units that are leased to CP Rail.  Some have been repainted in CP\'s red color scheme.