IHB Crossings

Since I needed to analyze all of the grade crossings of the IHB for prebuilt diamonds, I continued my study of IHB and listed all of the "interesting" points on tracks operated by the IHB. In the following, if the preposition is "over" or "under", it is a grade separated crossing of the indicated railroad. If it is "at", the crossing is at grade and uses diamonds. If it is "across", it is a bridge over the indicated river. And the preposition "pass" indicates an IHB yard or branch.

The major grade crossings have names because historically there would be a staffed tower to control the signals to indicate which train has the right-of-way. Sometimes different sources have different names for the same crossing, thus the square braces. The links are to satellite images of the crossing.

• at Franklin Park [Tower B12] (CP/Milw)
• passes Norpaul Yard
• over UP/C&NW (this is the crossing improved by the B3 CREATE project)
• over, and flyover connection with, the now abandoned Chicago Great Western
• under CN/ICwest
• under BNSF/CB&Q
• at McCook (BNSF/SanteFe) 1998 zchcsse1 video At 6:00, a trains begins with a couple of 5-packs.
• across Des Plaines River 
• over Metropolitan Sanitary District.  This is used to haul sludge from the treatment plant to the drying fields.
• across Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
• at Argo (CN/GM&O) This was the name in the Train Watcher's Guide Third Edition. The B&OCT map calls this "BM&O Tower" and "Argo" is the connection that goes north and then east to the old branch line to the stockyards. This branch line now connects to BRC rather than parallel it to the stockyards.
• over an industrial spur to Ingredion
• pass connections to BRC's Clearing Yard and B&OCT's container yard
• at Chicago Ridge (NS or Metra/N&W/Wabash)
• at Blue Island (CN/GTW)
• under Metra/Rock Island
• at North Harvey (B&OCT)
• pass Blue Island Yard
• under CN/IC
• at Dolton (UP/C&EI)
• at Calumet Park Junction (The crossing with Pennsy is now gone. But there is a lot of turnouts now connecting B&OCT with IHB, which parallels it to the south.)
• pass Calumet City Yard
• at Hohman Tower (NS/N&W/NKP)
• pass Gibson Yard.  This yard handles all of the vehicle trains for all of the railroads in the Chicago area.
• at Gibson (NS/NYC/KBR)

IHB operates tracks East and North of here.


Going East:

• at Ivanhoe (EJ&E)
• over CF&E/CSX/Pennsy remnant
• over abandoned Wabash route across Northern Indiana.
• the IHB operated line is now abandoned by 7th Ave even though all of the bridges that use to take the line north of NS and east to Burns Harbor seem to be intact: over industrial trackage, under CSX, and over NS. Note that NS has cut back the former 4-track NYC right-of-way to 2 tracks.

Going North:

• under Chicago South Shore and South Bend
  
• crosses Grand Calumet River
• branch to the West (see below)
• at Grasselli (EJ&E)
• at Calumet (CSX/B&O mainline)
• pass Michigan Avenue Yard
• at CP 447 (NS/NYC/LS&MS)
• at <unknown> (CSX/initial B&O mainline)
• terminates at Lake Front Yard

There are some branches, but it appears that any diamonds in these branches are lightly used.

• Starting west of Michigan Avenue Yard, crossing Indiana Harbor Canal,  and terminating at Standard Oil Yard.
• The referenced in the previous bullet list has a grade crossing with EJ&E, crosses the Indiana Harbor Canal, passes a branch to the North, and now terminates before crossing Indianapolis Blvd. Both the IHB and EJ&E used to extend West pass US-41. North Hammond Yard used to be where there is now buildings and piles of materials.
• The branch referenced in the previous bullet goes North along the canal and terminates inside a Marinoware Industries building. So the cars parked outside their plant are probably coil cars.

  

  Satellite

• East of Calumet City Yard is a branch that goes North and has grade crossings with CSS&SS and NS/N&W/NKP, passes Burnham Yard, and then has several tendrils into industrial areas.

  

  Excerpt from B&OCT map

Satellite

I spent some time analyzing CP 447 because it looked like they have removed the rails of the three track route. I did quite a bit of study to confirm that is the three track mainline of NS to Elkhart, IN. It not only carries a lot of freight into the Chicago area, it carries all of Amtrak trains to the East. (Amtrak trains to Michigan don't leave the NS mainline until Porter Junction.) So there is no way the rails can be abandoned. So why can't I see them? Also note that there is a "blob" at each rail crossing. Since IHB trains are always slow and Amtrak would like to be fast, I wonder if these are OWLS diamonds.

Satellite

I found a passenger train close by convincing me that these tracks still had to be in service even though I could not see any rails around the IHB track.