CNW Cars North Morton in Old Arial Photo

[cnwnorthline]

Hi,

Just wondering if anybody knows what these cars are north of Morton Salt:

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=16&X=2226&Y=23198&W=3&qs=%7cchicago%7c%7c

Note, the picture is from 1999.

Thanks,

Matt

[Cway]

Hey there,

If I am not mistaken,they are gondolas from a small scrap company that is no longer there...There used to be about 9-11 gondolas at a time there...

Cway

[SlowFreight]

To the best of my knowledge, that was actually General Metals shipping from the spur behind Morton (in Magnolia St.?).  It appeared that they were loading the shredded scrap into trucks on Kingsbury and dumping it on the ground, where a magnet crane then transferred it into the waiting gondolas.  If I\'m wrong on it being General, it was definitely *someone* who did not do their shredding at the loading site but was only shipping shredded steel.  At the time, however, gondolas were not being left for loading on the CP/Soo trackage at the main General Metals complex.

Of course, General Metals now does its outbound rail shipments via CT.  I also suspect that quite a bit of their steel goes out by truck.

At the time of the photo, there was actually a runaround track in place so the gondolas could be spotted for loading without blocking access to Morton Salt.

[cnwnorthline]

Hi,

Thanks for your help so far.  Was the run around track \"street trackage\"?

-Matt

[SlowFreight]

Not really.  The tie ends butted up to the pavement, and the track was sunk into the mud, but it definitely wasn\'t street trackage there.  If I get a chance, I have some photos I can scan that were taken in 2000.