Freight Traffic

[GM]

Anybody see any shipments lately. No mention of Kingsbury or Goose Island activity from anyone lately? Obviously Lakewood is dead.

GM

[JohnColeman]

There are a few cars at Finkl as of this past weekend.  Usually there are 2-3 sitting there when I drive by.

[Ian]

An almost empty car at Big Bay.....they delivered an empty to Finkl....I think....I saw them go across the river with a gon on each end.....so I dont really know what they did....all I know is that I happened to bike up over to Cortland St. just in time to see hem run light power back to North Ave. Yard.....

Im starting to worry that they are going down the toliet....

-Ian

[raisin]

I should probably know the answer to this, but don\'t.

Does anybody on Goose Island besides Big Bay receive rail service?  There\'s the big siding near the bridge at North Avenue, but I\'ve never seen any cars in there.

[Ian]

There shouldn\'t be anything but Big Bay on Goose Island.....

[kimball2]

When I was near Finkles a few days ago I saw two gondolas in their siding.  One was a white Wisconsin Central gondola. The other one might have been also, I\'m not sure.

[raisin]

This month\'s Chicago Magazine has an article on Finkl steel and the questions about what will replace the property.  In the article, there is a reference to Water Saver Faucet Company building a new factory on Goose Island.  I wonder if they will need/have rail service?

[raisin]

There are 3 cars at Big Bay right now (as of 7/15), so at least they seem healthy!

[JohnColeman]

Three cars!  That\'s more than I\'ve ever seen there.  What kind are they?  I wish I could get there to take some pictures, but am traveling out of town tomorrow morning.

[raisin]

1 box car and 2 of those cars that usually have wood products on them (center post cars, or something like that, I think they are called).  I almost ran my car right into them they were parked so close to Division Street when I made the turn in front of Big Bay.  That would\'ve been interesting to explain to the insurance company.

[GM]

That is a lot of freight cars considering the housing market has slowed. Hopefully they are keeping busy with shipments of lumber for rehabs in the area. I have only seen as much as 2 freight cars by Big Bay in the past. I have not noticed any lumber deliveries on the UP to Lee Lumber and Mayfair Lumber in the past 2 weeks. Although the North Ave yard has look fairly crowded over the last few weeks.
Anyone see any signs of delivery on Kingsbury to the firewood customer? Probably that will pick up in the fall. Hope that keeps the line going and the line does not get abandoned. I wonder if Carbit Paints would ever consider reestablishing deliveries via rail. It would be interesting to know if there has been any effort to regain some former customers of the Kingsbury line, Goose Island or off of Elston Ave. like Sipi Metals.

GM

[TBurke]

I believe Carbit Paints may be gone from their Kingsbury Street location.  There was a for sale sign on the building recently.

From the mid-1980s on I never saw a freight car on their interesting siding and spur off Kingsbury.  Then over time segments of their tracks were paved over.

Sipi Metals is still a current rail customer, though it is sporadic, unless something happened recently.

The best opportunity for the Chicago Terminal Railroad IMHO would be to open up a transload facility on Goose Island for truck to train interchange.  Perhaps Waste Management can once again also become a rail served customer on Goose Island-part of their spur is still in place, though covered in dirt and asphalt.

[GM]

For Sipi do they come down the spur to street level which exists off the side street by Elston Ave. or is there a spur that exists above next to Sipi where the UP tracks are leading to the bridge which goes over Elston?

GM

[TBurke]

Sipi Metals used to have two spurs into their property which forked apart from the lead that entered off the Mill Yard.  This same lead also curved down and onto Wabansia, heading east to the now gone Proctor & Gamble plant.

The Sipi spur that was used the most (until about 2000) dropped down and ran over part of brick paved Besly Ct. where it intersects Waubansia Avenue.  The other spur came in on the west side of the property and I never saw it in use as it normally was covered with stored odds and ends on the rails.

Around 2000 Sipi fenced off their plant and cut off the spurs running onto their property.  Instead, a \"new spur\" was made from the truncated old spur which terminates in a parking lot just outside Sipi.  That\'s where CP Rail and now CTR drop off an occasional gondola.

The spur into Sipi comes off the Milwaukee Road\'s former Mill Yard and makes a sharp curve downward to reach Sipi\'s parking lot.  At one time both C&NW and Milwaukee Road took turns switching out Sipi though in recent decades it seemed CP Rail/Soo Line handled it exclusively.

Sipi is high security and very railfan unfriendly so make sure that you observe or take pictures from a safe distance on public streets and sidewalks like on Besly.

[Ian]

wait a minute......UP still ships over to Mayfair Lumber?  The last time I saw those suckers drop a car in there I was still in grade school (2002)....

-Ian