Freight Traffic

[GM]

Looks like Bay Lumber has been busy. 3 empties attached to the outgoing train in North Ave Yard waiting to go back to Proviso.

[ray gerard]

they were there Friday, just what we want to see, those center-beams do impress

[GM]

North Ave yard looked empty Sunday night but when I came back over Ohio Feeder saw a large cut of boxcars at the Tribune Freedom Center yard. Must have dropped them there Friday for Monday morning job.

[robertmroman]

I was on the North Avenue bus, eastbound, around 6:30 PM on Monday, March 26. The CTR switcher was leaving Goose Island, light, apparently after dropping one or more cars off at the lumber yard. The sight caused a bit of a stir on the bus. Haven't seen them working so late myself, not since the days when CP was providing service.

Quite a few box cars waiting to be picked up in the North Avenue yard, too. A ramshackle rum looking bunch, too, making me wonder about the quality of service the Tribune is getting. Steady just in time? Glut or famine? And if any of those cars leak in the rain....

be well,
bob roman

[GM]

One Center Beam car full of lumber sitting by Big Bay on Sunday.

[GM]

Fully loaded Center Beam car at North Ave Yard this morning waiting to be spotted at Big Bay.

[TribuneFreightFanatic]

As of May 31st, there were about 10-15 boxcars lined up at the Trib Yard.. but as of today (June 2nd) there is only one car!  Guess they must have switched the plant 6/1. (Didnt have enough time to check out Finkl or Goose Island.  )

[GM]

Nothing at Big Bay on Sunday when driving by but there were 7 loads of scrap metal in the yard waiting to be sent out.

[GM]

Long string of gondolas as long as North Ave yard this morning. Scrap metal business looking busy lately.

[TBurke]

Took Metra in this morning on the NW Line.  I noticed at about 8:30AM that the Chicago Terminal locomotive was shoving some gondolas across the Elston Avenue bridge. 

On the 11:30AM train back out I saw UP switching out a pair of covered hoppers on the upper Blommer spur while there was a tank car on the street level spur.

The Chicago Terminal locomotive was back in its resting spot against the bumper in the North Avenue Yard by late morning.  The long string of gondolas full of scrap metal were still there.  The yard had boxcars for the Freedom Center and other covered hoppers. 

[TribuneFreightFanatic]

 On June 15th, I spent most of my day chasing the switch jobs of both the UP crew and CTRR crew. I rode on my bike to the North Ave. yard around 8:00a. (I was even there earlier than most of the workers..). By 9:00, most of the workers and managers were there, and the UP crew started the task of splicing up the cars into different loads. Once they had a long string of newsprint boxcars, they headed out towards the tribune yard. I hightailed it over there, where i managed to catch some of the switchjob at the plant. (I took a short video of it but have yet to edit it. I will post it-or a link to it on youtube- soon) Anyways, they switched the lower level of Blommer, and proceeded to head back to the North Ave. yard with a string of empties. They dropped them off there, and took two hopper cars to switch down at Morton Salt. Meanwhile, the CTRR crew used their engine to pull the empty string of newsprint cars back into another area of the yard, and then attach the full gondolas to them that they must have brought back from Finkl. After the UP crew came back from switching Morton, they headed over to the far side of the yard and switched some other cars. The CTRR crew headed out and first switched a small area in Finkl with a single gondola, then headed across north ave. and went to Big Bay to pick up an empty Hi cube Boxcar. They took that back across the swing bridge and back to the North Ave. yard. It was a very busy day, but it was somewhat reasurring that both companies did every job that day (Morton, Trib, Finkl, etc). Anyways, I have uploaded some action shots of the trib and finkl jobs on my flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/uspslabelfan/7448158204/in/photostream)<--theres one of em. Enjoy! and hopefully I'll be able to get some of the pics published to this website too. Thats all for now. 

[JohnColeman]

It's interesting that the UP train down near the tribune looks to have 3 gondolas in it.  I wonder why that is since neither Tribune or Blommer would be using that type of car.

[TBurke]

Maybe the gondolas are there for maintenance of way work? 

[haggar]

Big Bay had five, yes five, freight cars today 9/4/13. The most I've ever seen there. Four centerbeams and a boxcar.
Took a few pics with my phone.  Nothing great but I needed some sort of documentation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35990458@N03/

Joe

[TBurke]

It's amazing that Big Bay hangs on at all in this era of big box stores like Home Depot not far away.

Perhaps they picked up the slack when Aetna Plywood closed their transload facility off Elston.