PRNOA

[SlowFreight]

How does PRNOA, the nightly North Ave. turn, get between the New Line subdivision and the Harvard subdivision?  It always used to either go through the Des Plaines coach yard and use the double-slip switches, or back through the connecting track in the northwest quadrant of Deval.  I was looking at MS Live, and ALL of these connections are now gone.

Is the train now making a runaround move in both directions and backing down the Norma-Seeger connecting track?  Or does it now sneak through M19 and use what\'s left of the Cragin sub?

[TBurke]

My guess is that the train has to come back down the North Line and cross over at the North Avenue yard before heading northwest onto the Northwest or Harvard line.

I\'d be curious to know whether UP switches the few remaining industries along the Northwest line out of the North Avenue yard or the Crystal Lake yard.  By my count only Heller Lumber in Arlington Heights and Tru-Value\'s paint factory in Cary still receive freight service in the stretch between the city limits and Crystal Lake.  

It appears that the spur was taken out of service for the former Fuji Film plant in Rolling Meadows.

[SlowFreight]

I\'d be surprised if UP ran all the way up to Waukegan, but stranger has happened.  Do any of the folks at Chicago Terminal know?  I doubt they much care, but maybe they\'ve heard.

It\'s been since before I can remember that any local service existed between Gladstone Park and Des Plaines.  I remember chasing one of the Elk Grove jobs going up the Harvard Sub to switch such places as Sysco Foods (old Wieboldt\'s warehouse), Hines Lumber(in Mt. Prospect), Knight Engineering and Arlington Mills (both molding companies off Arthur Ave. in Arlington Heights), the Daily Herald in A.H., Fuji, and Heller Lumber.  Once in a great while, someone would have a reefer spotted opposite the Daily Herald on the MoW spur, but I think I saw that maybe four or five times.  So, those were never known to be switched from North Ave.  

In my days, nothing existed past a molding company (name unknown) near Fuji until you got to Cary.  Back in the 50\'s, the local would range much farther, but in the 80\'s and 90\'s, Cary and all points north were served by one of the WAJA turns.  Mon/Wed saw Crystal Lake, and Tues/Thurs was Beloit.  Tues/Thurs was when WACL handled the Ringwood duties, the sand pits and other traffic south of Crystal Lake having dried up in the 80\'s.  So, as close as Ringwood is to Proviso, it takes a consistent two extra days to get cars in and out.  And folks wonder why no one wants to ship via UP...

[Ian]

The PRNOA runs with engines on both ends.....2 in front...2 in back...they use the Seeger/Norma connection at Deval.....

As far as industry on the Harvard Sub.....the place in Arlington Heights and Cary is switched by a job based out of Elk Grove.....there is a switcher that comes out of Janesville too that does some stuff around Crystal Lake and northern points......Im not too sure what the UP switch engine based in Crystal Lake does.....

-Ian

[SlowFreight]

quote:Originally posted by Ian

The PRNOA runs with engines on both ends.....2 in front...2 in back...they use the Seeger/Norma connection at Deval.....

Thanks for the answer

quote:Originally posted by Ian

Cary is switched by a job based out of Elk Grove......Im not too sure what the UP switch engine based in Crystal Lake does.....

Reference above post....the True Value paint factory should still be switched out of either Janesville or Crystal Lake.  The Elk Grove yard job never went past Palatine.  The Crystal Lake wayfreight typically switches Terra Cotta industries just north of Crystal Lake--they heat-treat steel billet/bar/etc., a lumberyard (don\'t know name) next to the passenger station in McHenry, and the chemical plant in Ringwood.  Don\'t know if UP added any extra work to its job (it wasn\'t real busy), but the traffic was forwarded down from Janesville on one of the WAJA jobs.

[TBurke]

Since we are venturing into the NW suburbs, I had a few comments.  Does anyone know what the names of the industries are that UP (C&NW) serves in Crystal Lake just east of Rt. 31, south of downtown Crystal Lake, and north of Rt. 14?  It\'s off the southern remnant of the line which once went down to Elgin along the Fox River.  

I don\'t think the lumber yard next to the Metra station in McHenry is still rail served.  When I was up there a few years ago the spur into the Alexander Lumber yard was quite weedy and rusty.

Finally, does anyone recall what the industries were that were located in Palatine south of Rt. 14 and east of Hicks Road off the C&NW Northwest Line?  There were sets of spurs that criss-crossed each other.  Another spur went across Hicks Road to reach a business on the west side of Hicks.  Part of the spur system can still be seen.  I never saw any freight cars on them when they were attached to the siding off the mainline.

[SlowFreight]

The last I knew, in the mid 90\'s, there were no customers along the old Dundee line south of Terra Cotta industries.  About 1990 or so, the track had been cut off a block or two south of the US 14 crossing--maybe before then there was still sand being shipped out?  

Anyway, the part you\'re thinking of was/is used just as an interchange yard between the Janesville-based wayfreight and the Crystal Lake-based wayfreight, and by about 1995, the track ended just before the US 14 crossing.  In the early 90\'s there was still a lumberyard just off the north connecting track that scoots used to reach McHenry, but it closed by 1995.  Honestly, I never understood why the Janesville or Elk Grove jobs didn\'t just do the work themselves, or why they didn\'t consolidate more traffic onto the Crystal Lake job.  They could have even based it out of Harvard until the yard was removed.

I never knew of a spur crossing Hicks road, so that must have been gone by the late 1980\'s.  There was one customer on that leg of the spur that received plastic pellets until about 1990 or so, but I don\'t know who it was.  On the other side of Hicks was a Weber Grill facility that I think had a siding they never used.  The only other thing down there that ever seemed to get cars was the Fuji(?)plant.  MS Live shows two cars spotted there.  Further east, Sweeney Oil used to have a spur, but it was never used.

Now, the Dundee line down to Elgin (which was originally built as broad gauge with strap-iron rail) had some scenic running in Elgin proper until about 3 years ago when it was finally abandoned.  I only ever saw one photo of it (in Pacific Rail News) and didn\'t get the issue, so if anyone has or knows of photos of the Elgin spur, I\'d be interested to see--but that\'s totally OT.

[TBurke]

There\'s an excellent book that contains a lot of information on the C&NW line which went from Elgin north to Williams Bay, WI.  It\'s called \"Steam Trains to Lake Geneva\" and it\'s by Paul Behrens.  The book came out a couple of years ago in hardcover.

Another industry left out of the NW Line thread was Paulson Lumber in Barrington which was served by both the C&NW and the EJ&E since it sat at the NE side of the diamond.  Both lines had spurs going into the yard though after the mid-1970s only the J still served it.  By 1995 it was no longer a lumber yard and the J removed its spur.

In Cary there\'s a building on the north side of Rt. 14 across from the Metra station which had a spur which ran into it.  The spur crossed Rt. 14.  The tracks are long-gone but the faded, grey, wooden building with its wooden doors is still there.

In Fox River Grove the C&NW used to service a building materials company near the castle on the hill.  You can see where the track was removed with newer asphalt over it.

[SlowFreight]

IIRC, the industry in Cary was a lumberyard.  I talked with the owner when they were having a going-out-of-business sale and he told me the whole dreadful story.  He actively used his spur to receive lumber loads, and one day the North Western took it upon itself to pull the switch.  Because the railroad never requested and he never gave permission, he filed suit, which went all the way to the US Supreme Court, and won.  The ruling established that within certain requirements, a railroad may not disconnect an active spur without permission from the shipper.  

Unfortunately, during the interim, IDOT widened Rt 14, and THEY said that since the spur wasn\'t \"active\" (nevermind the ongoing litigation) that they wouldn\'t install a railroad crossing.  So even though he won against the railroad, the state was not bound by the same laws.  He spruced the place up with a nice cash settlement from the railroad, but then lumber prices doubled and without rail service the lumberyard went under....nice that he won, too bad it didn\'t help him.