Chicago Tribune Yard...

[Cway]

Hello all,

I was reading on another site that the Chicago Tribune yard has a lot of weeds and is barely used now...Is that true or not? When I go home at night, I pass North Ave yard and still see quite a bit of CN/DWP boxcars with newsprint...Can someone clarify?

Cway

[Northwesterner]

This just an educated guess on my part. But now that the Sun-Times has moved its presses to the suburbs, the UP no longer has to provide newsprint service to the Sun-Times building on the Chicago River. Perhaps some of the Tribune\'s yard was used for storing cars for the S-T. That would free up some track space at the Trib. Anyone else have thoughts?

CNW - Route of the Kate Shelley

[TBurke]

The Tribune yard normally has quite a few boxcars parked there from Chicago Avenue all the way to Grand Avenue.  Not sure where the reports came from about it not being used.  The Sun-Times relocated in 2001 so the overall number of boxcars is down slightly though the Sun-Times only received three or four per week at their underground loading dock by the river.

[JohnColeman]

I also noticed this yard completely empty a few time earlier this year.  Now it usually has lots of box cars, but occasionally I do see it with only a few.

[raisin]

Does anyone know what days/times the Tribune receives their rail deliveries?  In all the years I\'ve driven by there, I\'ve never actually seen a delivery in progress.  Do they get the deliveries late at night to prepare for the overnight print runs?

[JohnColeman]

I\'m not sure exactly what the schedule is, but I\'ve seen this some mornings from my passing Metra UP Northline train.  Actually noticed it Monday of this week (at about 8:20 am).

[raisin]

Thanks, that makes some sense. That\'s not a time of day I\'d be over there very often.

[JohnColeman]

I\'ve also seen them switching Blommer Chocolate at the same time on weekday mornings.  The Metra train passes right over the lower spur to Blommer.  It\'s pretty cool to see a UP engine pushing a car down their spur about to go underneith our train.  Usually I\'m not the only one looking out the window at it!

[D. Kaniuk]

For pictures of the Tribune Yard, see the post called:
Field Trip 3-19-2008

[cnwnorthline]

Hi,

I\'ve been meaning to ask this for a while but does anybody know why there always seems to be so many hopper cars down in this yard?  ARe they all for blommer?

Thanks,

-Matt

[JohnColeman]

I think any hoppers or tank cars in the Tribune yard would have to be for the lower Blommer spur.  

Does anyone know where the hopper cars for the upper level Blommer spur are switched out of?  Do they come from the Division St Yard on the Metra tracks and then go out to Blommer, or do they come from somewhere on the UP West line?  

There are usually one or two there each day, but a couple weeks ago I saw a string of six of them sitting there next to the plant!

[TBurke]

Cars for Blommer Chocolate\'s upper spur are delivered from the UP North Avenue yard.  A few years ago from a building high above the area I was able to watch the entire operation prior to all the tall condo buildings going up.  A locomotive shoves a car (or more) down into the throat of the Ogilvey Transportation Center station from the Northwest Line, then criss-crosses from the Northwest Line to the West Line using ladder tracks. The train then heads down the West Line, stops at the switch to the upper level spur, and backs the freight car down into it alongside the north side of the Peerless building.

This movement takes place in late morning from what I have seen, including yesterday coincidently at about 11:30AM as I saw from an inbound Metra train.  The freight train was on the upper level and waiting to push a car into the spur.

[JohnColeman]

That\'s great.  I\'d love to see that some time.  Would be great to get some pictures or video of that from the platform at Ogilvy!

[CNW4404]

The upper-level job is now based out of the Keeler Avenue yard; the switcher (usually UPY 728, 729, or 1448) heads east and then goes up to the top.

[raisin]

Re: my earlier post above, I believe I finally saw the Tribune paper delivery in progess.  It was around 4 p.m. on Friday and the UP switcher had a line of CP box cars heading out of North Avenue Yard towards downtown (unless it was backing up with empties).