Our dreaded day of reckoning has finally come.
I have received word from an inside source that this upcoming Friday, June 12 2020, is the final day of freight-based operations for Union Pacific out of the North Ave Yard.
The crew has received orders to round up all of the remaining freight cars and take them up to Proviso on Friday. The freight switching operations of Blommer, Tribune, etc. will be taken over by another UP crew based out of somewhere else (most likely Proviso).
UP 1430 (the current GP40-2 assigned to YNO68) will leave the yard for inspection on Thursday, and UP 1345 (another GP40-2) will be assigned to the final job.
Friday's itinerary includes:
- Rounding up all freight cars at North Ave.
- *possible* Upper-level Blommer Job, TBD.
- Run-around at Tribune Yard with all of the cars from North Ave.
- Slow pull of all cars toward the CY Tower as the crew heads north on the Harvard Sub.
Again, this is the end of YNO68 out of North Ave for the foreseeable future. It is a sudden end to decades of history that many of us on this site have worked hard to document.
If I find out any more information about time, I will update here. Hope to see you out in the field on Friday.
- Horace
