C&EI Dolton and Maney Yards are now UP Yard Center

(Satellite)

C&EIHS posted

Dennis DeBruler shared
Keith Meacham: Looks like Yard Center and this was taken off Sibley Boulevard.

 

Dennis DeBruler commented on Keith's comment

 It makes sense that the coaling tower would have been replaced by diesel fuel tanks.

https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUiWvTTGBx...

 

1953 Calumet Lake and Calumet City Quadrangles @ 1:24,000

 

Andy Zukowski posted
The Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad, North Gravity Train Yard  in Dolton, Illinois   C.1910

Richard Fiedler: Common name is “Hump Yard”.

Andy Zukowski posted again

The Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad North Gravity Train Yard in Dolton, Illinois.  C.1910

Dennis Smith: Yard center

Andy Zukowski posted
Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Yard in Dolton, Illinois.  C.1910
Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Historical Society shared
C&EI Yard Center at Dolton, Illinois.
[I think the following two comments contradict each other.]

Donald Keen: Should mention the Viaduct that at Sibley Blvd does appear with this picture!

George DeBoer: Looking north l think, before 147th (Sibley blvd) had a overpass.

Mark Hinsdale posted

"The Set Up..."

Brand new from Electro Motive at La Grange, L&N SD40-2 #3588, in Family Lines paint, gets prepped for service on a sunny afternoon at the joint Missouri Pacific-Louisville & Nashville locomotive facility in Yard Center (South Holland) IL. September, 1977 photo by Mark Hinsdale

Mark caught the action at Yard Center after the C&WI was split up and before CSX was formed. MoPac wanted to buy the C&EI part. But the federal regulators would not let them buy it unless they sold the eastern route to L&N. That is why today UP and CSX share the "main stem" from just below Woodland, IL, north to 75th street were Metra owns the rest of the north/south C&WI route for their SWS commuter service on the former-Wabash route. UP, CSX, and NS have freight trackage rights on the Metra route into town. UP and CSX would be because of the C&EI part of C&WI and NS would be because of the Wabash part of C&WI.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

An older map labels the northern part, which is now an intermodal yard, as Dolton Yard and the lower part, which is still a classification yard, as Maney Yard. The steam engine servicing facilities were at the south end of Dolton Yard.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

A newer map labels the lower part as UP+CSX Yard Center and has a lot of unreadable text next to the upper part. Google indicates both yards are "UP DOLTON." That makes sense because I think CSX would take their freight trains to their Barr Yard (CSX owns B&OCT) and the intermodal trains to their Bedford Park Terminal.

Update:
Joseph Tuch Santucci posted two photos with the comment:

Union Pacific’s former MoPac, née C&EI Yard Center south tower in Dolton. Well, technically this tower is in South Holland. In 1985 the powers that be decided to close Yard Center as MoPac’s primary classification yard and move operations to the much smaller 26th Street Yard eight miles south in South Chicago Heights. They moved most of the classification to the Belt Railway of Chicago’s Clearing Yard. This was to the dismay of interchange partner Grand Trunk Western and MoPac’s largest customer, General Motors. GTW used to deliver a daily 385 train to and pull a 386 train from here. On Fridays, Saturdays and sometimes Sundays there would be a second and on occasion a third 385 arriving here. These trains were heavily laden with finished autos, light trucks and heavy trucks from the Big 3 car makers as well as auto and truck parts and bus chassis. 

The hottest train on MoPac, CKZ the Chicago-Kansas City Expedited originated here heavy on auto parts for auto plants in the Kansas City area and points west as well as finished autos, light trucks and heavy trucks. Six hours and forty-five minutes after the GTW power cut away, CKZ was supposed to be ready to depart Yard Center. We were on schedule 96% of the time, an industry best for a non-intermodal train. Moving this switching to Clearing Yard added a minimum of twelve additional hours to the connection and departure of those trains, but in reality it was about twenty-four hours. GM and GTW were not at all pleased with this change. This change affected other trains handling auto parts and finished motor vehicles. MoPac handled auto parts for other GM plants including Reisor,LA, Arlington , TX and Mexico. They also handled finished vehicles and auto parts for the other car makers and they too were affected. Other trains that handled this traffic were also affected. GM and GTW eventually took MoPac, which was then fully merged into UP to court and won. The interchange between MoPac and the now former MoPac at Yard Center was reinstated and the yard was reopened as a full classification and interchange yard. 

The photos here are mine, the first being taken in 1989 and the second taken several years later after Yard Center was reopened. In the first photo you can see the tower windows boarded up. The dark circular and rectangular spots were where the C&EI buzzsaw and later Missouri Pacific buzzsaw logo and L&N logos were mounted. From the time the C&EI was split up between the MoPac and L&N, Yard Center was a joint agency of the two railroads beginning in 1969. With the coming of CSX, the new company pulled most of its business out of Yard Center including locomotive servicing. Upon reopening, south tower was refurbished including fresh new paint and UP logos applied. 

Perhaps this was in reality, the first foray into what would become the gimmick known as PSR. This was all about cutting cost with the customer’s demands being the least of their concerns.

Stan Stanovich: …such truth Joseph Tuch Santucci, call it what you will. Through my personal experience and observations, without singling out any examples I have seen railroad operations based on their own convenience with absolutely no concern of the customers’ needs a number of times though the years. Though not aware of this one, your story is the perfect example. Because making money requires spending money. It’s as if at times they’ll go to any extreme to actually attempt to drive business away instead of embrace it…

And just a few days later I see another photo of the tower that I never new existed.

Thomas Bowers posted
The South End of Yard Center at South Holland, IL. 1983

Steven J. Brown posted three photos with the comment:

It was a gray Sunday in Chicago. Someone with a drivers license was driving me around Chicago's south suburbs to various rail yards taking roster shots of the locos hanging around.

Here is a sample of what was present at Missouri Pacific's Yard Center in Dolton, Illinois - July 24, 1977.

1
Louisville and Nashville GP7 392
[Note the coaling tower in the background.]

2
MoPac GP18 1929
Lisa Renee Ragsdale Is there a GP18 among these guys? Thank you.
Jeff Lewis AAR trucks!

3
MoPac U30C 3305

Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Historical Society posted
50 years ago today wrecker crane A-2 at Yard Center, IL on September 9, 1967.

Bill Molony posted
The Chicago & Eastern Illinois yard tower at Dolton - 1912.

Bill Bielby posted
I'm standing in front of C&EI locomotive 1600, "The Whippoorwill," at the line's Dolton, IL facility at 147th (Sibley Blvd) and Indiana Ave. Around 1955

Nathan Mackey posted
Wandering around the Yard Center facility. Oct. '98
Dennis DeBruler I had a brain burp as to where Yard Center was. I knew it was on UP's "south spoke." I see the engine servicing facilities are west of the intermodal yard. https://www.google.com/.../@41.6259042,-87.../data=!3m1!1e3

Paul Petraitis shared
Probably 1913
Old Yard Center photo.
Mike Breski posted

Michael Brandt posted
A great shot of the Union Pacific Railroad yard from Sibley Blvd. To the left is what you see from Indiana Ave, nowadays all you see is a huge dumping ground for shipping containers stacked at least 30ft tall. When the people on Indiana Ave look out their front window it's all they see.

Street View, Jun 2023

C&EIRHS shared Jim Prrfan's post
L&N meets the MO Pac at Yard Center Dolton ILL. no date.
Jim PRRFan photo  Photo from 35mm slide.
Craig Cloud: Early mid 1970's guessing
Kevan Davis: L&N GP 30 (1037) CEI/MP (84) GP7 rebuilt with low nose larger fuel tank and a MP SD40.

You can see a water tower in the background of the above photo. But this photo shows that they had two of them. And they were exceptionally tall.

Bill Molony posted
Chicago & Eastern Illinois class C-2 0-8-0 switch engine #1800 at Yard Center in Dolton on August 4, 1947.
Dennis DeBruler Not only two water towers, those towers were tall.

Mike Breski posted
[Some of the comments discuss the clay pits used by brick companies including a map.]

Bill Molony posted
Chicago & Eastern Illinois class H-6-b 2-8-0 Consolidation-type #930, taking on water at Yard Center in Dolton, Illinois on September 9, 1948.

Jim French posted
MP 1556 (or 1558) switching at Yard Center, IL in Jan 1980. I can’t figure this one out - look at the number boards versus the side numerals. All I can figure is that part of the Scotchlight ‘8’ perfectly peeled off. Jim French photo.

Digitally Zoomed, at photo resolution
[Some comments indicate that the "orange things" may be the casings for a compressor blower or a centrifugal pump.]

Gary Sturm posted
FRISCO #682 and L&N #4005 at YARD CENTER in Dolton, Illinois in 1974.

Joseph Tuch Santucci posted
MoPac short bay window caboose at Yard Center in Dolton, IL on 1984. These were road cabooses built new in MoPac’s Sedalia and DeSoto, MO car shops. They had electricity, radios, flush toilets and cushioned draft gear but because of their short car bodies, no bunks.

Craig Cloud: Mopac, Family Lines had'em as well. Question is when did agreements disappear of assigned crew and caboose?

Joseph Tuch Santucci: Craig Cloud the Family Lines version were built by FGE in Alexandria, VA. They were quite similar but also somewhat different. When I started at MoPac in 1978 there were no assigned cabooses to through freight conductors, they were all pool cabooses. We did have a couple of downgraded road cabooses in Chicago that were normally assigned to the city run and Clearing run. They had been fortified with heavy mesh over the windows and bars for the doors. They were dubbed the “war wagons.” These two came about after a conductor got robbed on a caboose when a perpetrator kicked the door in.