Former Lee Lumber active yard photo

[Brianbobcat]

I came across an aerial photo of the former I.C. Berlin Press printing plant at Belmont and Kimball.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/29821940@N00/6955984721/  In the background is the former Lee Lumber and Prairie Materials yard, FULL of tank and box cars.  Several box cars are offloading at Lee, but not many.  I take it the rest of the cars are for industries located along the CNW NW line?  Who would the tankers have been for?  All the businesses I am familiar with being on that line used box cars.

Enjoy!

[TBurke]

That's a cool picture.  Good catch.  I like seeing the boxcars flush against the sides of the Lee Lumber building and the freight doors. 

Those freight cars might be for industries along the C&NW Avondale Line which extended east to the North Branch of the Chicago River where it terminated at a ComEd plant at Addison and California.  It ran on a viaduct until it neared ComEd when it went down to ground level.  The line was in place into the mid-1980s then began to be cut back and is mostly gone now with even the earthen viaducts mostly removed and replaced by housing. 

If you use Google Streetview you can see a section of isolated track alongside the north edge of Newport just east of Kimball.  Zooming out you can see the contours of where the spurs used to run by the building and alley shapes.

Have you seen my all-time C&NW Northwest Line customer listing?

https://sites.google.com/site/cnwnorthwestline/

[themats]

In addition to having an amazing collection of northside switching photos, John Smatlak has a great album on Flickr of the Com Ed line remains:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76677346@N04/sets/72157636488148584

I think he's also responsible for the following website about the Com Ed line, which ran on inverted 3rd rail:

http://www.railwaypreservation.com/northwest_station.htm

Be sure to check out the 2 PDFs at the top of the website.  Great pics and info.

Mike Murray

[TBurke]

In addition to having an amazing collection of northside switching photos, John Smatlak has a great album on Flickr of the Com Ed line remains:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76677346@N04/sets/72157636488148584

I think he's also responsible for the following website about the Com Ed line, which ran on inverted 3rd rail:

http://www.railwaypreservation.com/northwest_station.htm

Be sure to check out the 2 PDFs at the top of the website.  Great pics and info.

Mike Murray

Very cool Mike.  I really liked those old maps.  California Avenue is not even shown yet.  I remember driving down Addison Street all the time in the 1980s from my home in Lakeview to/from work and seeing that track that went into the ComEd plant which paralleled Addison.  A new grade crossing with those rubber type mats was installed on California Avenue just south of Addison circa 1985-after rail service had already ended which I found ironic.  By the late 1980s the track was taken up and a shopping center built on top of some of the former ROW.

[Brianbobcat]

In addition to having an amazing collection of northside switching photos, John Smatlak has a great album on Flickr of the Com Ed line remains:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76677346@N04/sets/72157636488148584

I think he's also responsible for the following website about the Com Ed line, which ran on inverted 3rd rail:

http://www.railwaypreservation.com/northwest_station.htm

Be sure to check out the 2 PDFs at the top of the website.  Great pics and info.

Mike Murray

I actually hadn't seen most of those links or photos.  I knew about the former Avondale line and even filmed on the last remains of it at Elston and Roscoe where it curved into what is now the Addison Mall Target (Montgomery Ward) store.  The ComEd plant used coal though, so I still wonder which of the many businesses along the CNW used those tankers.

[TBurke]

In addition to having an amazing collection of northside switching photos, John Smatlak has a great album on Flickr of the Com Ed line remains:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76677346@N04/sets/72157636488148584

I think he's also responsible for the following website about the Com Ed line, which ran on inverted 3rd rail:

http://www.railwaypreservation.com/northwest_station.htm

Be sure to check out the 2 PDFs at the top of the website.  Great pics and info.

Mike Murray

I actually hadn't seen most of those links or photos.  I knew about the former Avondale line and even filmed on the last remains of it at Elston and Roscoe where it curved into what is now the Addison Mall Target (Montgomery Ward) store.  The ComEd plant used coal though, so I still wonder which of the many businesses along the CNW used those tankers.

It will take some digging to uncover which industries were possible customers for tank car deliveries off the Avondale Line.  I'll have to pull out my Chicago Switching District from the 1950s and see.

But there are lots of candidates for former tank car customers within a short distance of the yard up and down the Northwest Line.  See the list with addresses.  They are in spreadsheet format on my website.  Looks like I need to correct a couple of listings to show them next to the Northwest Line and not the North Line in the area of the Avondale Yard.

https://sites.google.com/site/cnwnorthwestline/

[mark_k]

I recall seeing some of the elevated embankments and a trestle or two in the early 1990s.

This past September on a rare Chicago visit I spent a few hours waiting to enter the late, great Hot Doug's on Roscoe and California looking across the street for any signs of rail artifacts in vain. I did see what looked like a bridge abutment at Elston & North Whipple earlier that morning.