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Also dating to 2/29/88 is a closer view of the abandoned Milw Rd. freight office on Goose Island, to the right or west of the former yard.

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This animal rendering plant used to receive a tank car or two from the Milw. Rd. via a very long spur which wound through the property of another industrial site. Recent arrivals to the converted office lofts would complain about the sight of animal parts being carried in by truck down North Branch St. to the plant. National By-Products was acquired by another firm ometime around 1990 and operations were shut down. As of 2002, this building, now renovated, still exists.

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A pair of boxcars are spotted at the team tracks on Goose Island at Division and Hickory Streets. Off-line customers use team tracks to send or receive shipments via rail. Note the loading ramp which allows access to the side of a rail car or for loading truck trailers onto a flatcar from the front. Behind the camera and out of view is Waste Management's facility which was capable of receiving freight cars. This photo dates from the early 1990s.

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On a rainy summer day in 1996, a Soo Line patrol is working the team tracks at Division and Hickory Streets. Lots of activity today, with a pair of covered hoppers receiving a load from a truck with a worker on top of one of them directing the flow. A train led by a Soo Line GP-9 appears to be dropping off another hopper and a boxcar on the track to the right, or west, in this view. A pet food company supposedly was one of the shippers using these team tracks.

GP9s were used when train lengths were especially long, as well as cabooses. Even in the mid-1990s trains would stretch some 20 cars or more, traveling down city streets on Kingsbury or Cherry. When AKZO/International Salt, a major rail customer for inbound loads of salt, shut down their North Branch facility on the southern end of Goose Island, there were no more long trains.

Prior to the time of this photo the westernmost track crossed Division St. to the south and traveled to almost Halsted St. Even at this late date, you could still see the abandoned section of track re-emerge south of Division St. and travel south along Hooker St. though it was paved over where it crossed Division. As of 2004, nothing remains of this scene as Goose Island converted from heavy manufacturing to commercial and light industry. There was talk about building a new team track but the plans never came about.

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Goose Island had some interesting trackwork. At the southern end of the island the track running down Cherry Avenue and North Branch Street joined with the track that ran down Hickory Avenue near the Ogden Avenue overpass. This arrangement allowed crews two different routes back to the Division Street Yard to the north if either of the two lines were blocked by parked trucks, freight cars spotted for drop-off in the street, or derailment. The tracks came together at the site of a scrap yard, the Ozite Corporation, which used to receive gondolas into the early 1980s. On the right is the track in this 1990 photo that came in from North Branch while the track on the left went into the Pickens-Kane warehouse building formerly used by Lissner and Wieboldts. The 1991 rebuilding project of North Branch severed these tracks. Out of view and in the distance the tracks from Hickory and North Branch joined together.

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A large customer for the Milwaukee Road was National Tea with its warehouse on the south side of Division Street between Hooker Street and Hickory Avenue. In this photo from the summer of 1990 the tracks across Division Street were already paved over and the ramp up to Ogden Avenue is closed for the eventual demolition of this overpass. However you can still see the enclosed area with the roll-up door where trains entered the National Tea warehouse along Hickory Avenue. The track ran the length of the building and exited onto Hickory Street south by the Ogden Avenue overpass, rejoining the main track on Hickory. The main track continued south on Hickory to where it intersected with the track from North Branch just south of the Ogden Avenue overpass

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On a snowy February in 1990 we are looking east down Blackhawk Street. To the north or left is part of the Klemp Corporation site, a one-time customer of the Milwaukee Road. Note the “DANGER TRAIN” sign on the building. By this date the Klemp Corporation was already out of operation though an active track ran through its property, passing through the open gate, and across Blackhawk to reach the two spurs at National By-Products to the south or right. This whole scene has changed dramatically over the years.

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You can see the John Hancock Building thorugh the open doors of this boxcar on Goose Island from the gritty yard off Division Street.

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On a cold February day in Chicago in 1990, the former Milwaukee Road Goose Island yard plays host to several boxcars in the Soo Line/CP Rail era. The second boxcar is still in Milwaukee Road colors and lettering, while a third boxcar is parked along the old Milwaukee Road freight house to the right (south). At one time this yard was a very busy place, wtth transfer runs from Bensenville bringing in new cars and retrieving outbound ones here. In a few more years, even this scene will be gone.

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This view dates from 1987 and it looks northwest from Division St. at Hickory across the team tracks towards two old, brick, industrial buildings that still stood. The massive Proctor & Gamble plant is off in the distance. On the far right of the picture is the Waste Management facility that also used to receive boxcars (outbound trash?) into the mid-1990s. Talk about a bad paint job on the one building! If you look closely you can see the track crossing Division St. that went down Hickory St. A light coat of asphalt covers it up at this point but the tracks are sticking through.

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The photos are different angles of the empty gondola that was spotted the night before by the Chicago Terminal Railroad. It sits on a piece of track on vacant land that is between Division Street and the end of Kingsbury Street. The tracks extend about another 50 feet south of this point.

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With an MP-15 locomotive still in Milwaukee Road colors, the CP Rail/Soo Line crew crosses the Chicago River and passes east through the scrapyard on Kingsbury to link up with the street trackage. A pressurized hopper with sugar for Peerless is in tow.

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The crew uncouples the hopper for Peerless which they will leave in the street while they deliver an inbound load in the gondola for Finkl Steel.