Move times?

[Brianbobcat]

Thanks to D. Kaniuk, we now all know that Alpha Baking gets their deliveries "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."  I've seen the North Avenue yard active around 10am three monday's so far this year.  Outside of that, when else are scheduled moves?  I've never seen a move to or from Tribune, and certainly never seen one at Blommer.  Are either of these routinely scheduled?  How about Big Bay?  General Iron?

On a side note, it was briefly hinted that Sims Metal Management at 1509 West Cortland Street may be a new rail customer.  Another user, I forgot who, mentioned that there were empty gondolas parked over Elston next to the former Aetna on the bypass track.  I've kept a close eye on those cars, which are perpetually sitting there, and haven't gotten proof either way.  Yes there's cars parked there, and there's now a front end loader with a long arm, but I've never seen anything in them and there still looks to be a fair amount of plants and trees in the way.  That would explain why the trackage in this whole area was redone a couple years ago.  McGrath parks cars on the former bypass track, so I just thought that they moved where it was located.  One last note, from Google Maps it looks like there's an opening in the retention wall leading to Sims where something used to be poured into the site.  Obviously materials would go the opposite direction now, but maybe the site used to be rail served for an entirely different business and may now be again.

Anyone have specific info on freight move times for Morton, Tribune, Blommer, Big Bay and anyone else I'm forgetting (am I forgetting anyone else)?

Thanks.

[TBurke]

1509 W. Cortland is the location of the former Roth Adams Coal Yard which was a customer of the Milwaukee Road.  In later years it became a scrapyard and into the 1990s it was still rail-served by the Soo Line.  Mark K. has a photo of a gondola on the spur that entered the yard from that era-somewhere-on the redesigned Chicago Switching site.  At some point and for unknown reasons the scrapyard switched to just barges and trucks.

In Chicago coal yards often converted to scrap yards as coal fell out of use for heating.

Those bins you describe were used to hold coal or other materials which would drop down from hoppers between the openings on a wooden trestle over which the track ran. 

[tytrain]

The last gondola, which had been sitting on this spur for several months at least, moved in the past month or two. It's been empty for a bit now. I used to ride the Armitage bus to work every morning this past winter and would check the site every day. Only caught the CT switching once - they must have gotten an early start that day (it would have been around 9:15 AM).