Sunday, April 10, 2016

CWP&S's South Deering or 100th Street Yard and Wisconsin Steel Slag Dump

(Satellite information is below)

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3. CWP&S 49 again, but at 104th St., Chicago, IL on March 31, 1964.

Brubaker, C. William, 1974, "Railroad Yards, South Deering", bru012_10_jF, UIC, CC BY-NC-SA, cropped
View looking southwest from East 103rd Street overpass at a large rail yard site. Boxcars in the foreground include one from the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railway (C&EI) and another from Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad (DT&I). These rail yards extend southeast from approximately East 100th Street to East 110th Street.

UIC Library Flickr
[Same description as above]
1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP
I believe the yard went from 100th to 104th and industrial spurs went south down to 110th Street to serve Wisconsin Steel, which was the reason the CWP&S existed. I wonder if the "line" along the middle of the white area was a railroad trestle on which slag cars ran and the white area is a slag dump. It looks like the slag dump has been cleaned up, but a lot of the yard still exists. But they have made some of the land on the north end productive by selling it to industries.

Satellite
Steve OConnor posted
Wisconsin Steel Corporation: Dumping slag in South Chicago (WIS Photo-Dr. Raymond Boothe Collection).
David Raley When I was a conductor for CSX switching a local at NUCOR steel in Crawfordsville, IN, there was a nearby slag pit that when dumped into would light up the whole sky even when it couldn't be seen from where you were standing. The first time I saw it I actually started to run toward my engine because I thought it was an explosion in the mill, but the engineer explained it was just NUCOR's slag dumper and no loud boom would follow the big light it made.

Wayne Evans posted
Dumping cinders from the Wisconsin steel plant in Chicago at 104 street just East of Torrence Ave about 67/68. Working on the Chicago West Pullman & Southern. Low man on the extra board and got all the [difficult] jobs like the coke plant coal dumping.
Chuck Fleisleber Didn't they use to call the neighborhood around there Slag Hill?
Larry Grzywinski Chuck Fleisleber Slag Valley
John Lovaas Inland Steel built 5 square miles of lakefront property this way...Jeffery Hamilton I was a contractor for Acme steel at their plant in Riverdale but traveled to their Coke and Furnace plants in Chicago to do work. Unfortunately, they are no more.
Dennis DeBruler The steel plant still exists, and it is now owned by Arcelor-Mittal.
https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4...
The bottle trains now come from blast furnaces in Indiana rather than from another location on the Calumet River.
Update:
Gary Sturm posted
CHICAGO WEST PULLMAN & SOUTH engines in the CWP&S yard in South Deering in Chicago in 1981.
[The comments discuss some old steam engines that used to sit in this yard for a long time.]

Marty Bernard posted three photos with the comment: "3 More Chicago West Pullman & Southern Photos."
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1. CWP&S Office at 2710 E.104th St., Chicago, IL on March 31, 1964.

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2. CWP&S 49 and 45 at South Deering Yd, Chicago, IL on May 13, 1965.
49 was a NW2 built 9/48, ex-DT&I 911.
45 was a SW8 built in 1952.

Steve OConnor posted
Interlake Iron Corporation-1965: Ladle Accident (IK Photo-Dr. Raymond Boothe Collection).
[
It is a different steel company, but I wanted to keep pictures concerning slag cars together.]
Steven J. Brown posted
Chicago West Pullman and Southern EMD switcher dumping slag near Pullman Junction, Chicago, IL - February 12, 1976.


Marty Bernard posted
3. CRI&P NW2 772 at 103rd St. in the CWP&S Yard, Chicago, IL on May 13, 1964.
Dave Glowczynski Jr.: Where was the 103 st yard?????
Bob Lalich: Dave Glowczynski Jr. - CWP&S 100th St yard is just east of Torrence Ave, between 100th and 104th Sts. Rock Island's Irondale Branch runs along the west side of the yard.

Bob Lalich commented on Dave's comment

Dennis DeBruler commented on Dave's comment, at image resolution
Dennis DeBruler
Admin
Just the other week, I was trying to remember who owned this yard. To add to my confusion, the railroads that go by it were owned by the Rock Island and BRC. But I see on this map provided by Bob Lalich that the CWP&S used trackage rights on the RI to get to this yard. Bob's comment was "Here is a CWP&S map circa 1915, courtesy of the Southeast Chicago Historical Society collection. West Pullman was quite an industrial area at the time." The CWP&S was one of two railroads that International Harvester owned in Chicago. This one served their Wisconsin Steel and Plano Works facilities. Most of the CWP&S route was trackage rights on RI and IC.

I'm guessing this caboose was parked in this yard.
Gary Sturm posted
Chicago West Pullman & Southern caboose #207 in Chicago in 1976.




















2 comments:

  1. I was a switchman for CWP&S in 1967-68 and remember hauling slag up that hill. Also remember moving pig iron in the mill as well as taking iron off the blast furnace with torpedo cars. We serviced the furnaces, the rolling mill, the oxygen furnace as well as transferring trains to the International Harvester factory in West Pullman. My father-in law was a switchman and his father-in-law was an engineer for CWP&S. janderson111846@gmail.com

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  2. I lived at 12243 May St in Chicago some sixty years ago, I remember a huge building at the end of that street, I first thought it was coal plant and after doing some research it mentioned something to do with railway???? Do you have any ideas on this?

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