Version 5 of the Chicago Switching site is now live. In this version, we've integrated our photos with Google Maps. Beneath the article title is a link to view all of the photos in the article on a map, and below each photo is a [map] link that plots the individual photo onto a map. The Interactive Map page now displays all of our photos organized by location.

The Chicago Terminal Railroad tonight, February 12, 2007, opened up the stretch of the C&E South Line from the cutoff at the Goose Island lead all the way down to where the tracks end near Halsted St.

The railroad's SW-8 by itself made its way down these tracks which had not seen a train since the late 1990s. The last time I recorded any action on this section was in 1998 when a boxcar was spotted at Midwest Zinc on Kingsbury two blocks south of North Avenue. Midwest Zinc is now a vacant lot.

The locomotive pushed asphalt out of the flangeways and off the rails where the city had paved over the track, leaving pieces of broken pavement in its wake.

Finally, the crew made a second run back with a gondola which they placed on Kingsbury St.

Hopefully the new shortline will be able to attract new rail shippers to this section of the line.

As reported in our forum, Peerless will shut it's doors in April.

Check out the Shortlines of Chicago Historical Society, a group that is preserving historical information about industrial and shortline railroads in the Chicago metropolitan area. The organization publishes a quarterly ~tmann1_cs_com_newsletter.

As reported in Crain's Chicago Business, Finkl Steel has been sold and will shut down their plant at Cortland and the river where they have operated since 1902. This event will mark the end of operations on the Deerline Line.