CP 502/447: IHB vs NS/NYC vs CSX/B&O vs CN/EJ&E

(Satellite)

Arturo Gross Flickr Photo (source), this photo used with specific permission
Got out for some first day of 2018 train photography, sunny but never got above 3 degrees! Here we have Norfolk Southern ES44DC 7601 leading a steel coil train off the Indiana Harbor Belt onto home rails eastbound at CP 502, E Chicago IN, Jan 1 2018.
Dennis DeBruler The left track in the foreground shows how a turnout heater keeps the points free of snow.

NS must have slightly changed the origin of the mileage markers because my reference map for the Chicago area shows this as CP 447. But Arturo caught the signal box clearly showing CP 502. Can you imagine how complicated this junction was back when all five bridges in the background were still being used? But I have not found any information on a tower for this junction.

Update: Photos posted by Dillon Harrison.

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One of 19 photos in the area posted by Matt McClure including a bottle car
With BNSF and CP GE units chugging, a manifest freight moves toward Robert Young Yards in Elkhart.

Viral Media posted

IHB-NS Triple Diamond

The Indiana Harbor Belt Lakefront Yard is the northern terminus of the IHB Kankakee Line after it crosses the NS Chicago Line. The line has to cross the triple track main line at NS CP502, which makes for a complex piece of trackwork. The Lakefront Yard is near the waterfront Ameristar Casino in East Chicago, Indiana. This stretch of the Norfolk Southern mainline serves as the primary conduit for NS traffic to Chicago, CP trains using trackage rights and also carries a large number of Amtrak trains.

Andre Kristopans: A bit of history - the line crossing the old B&O and NYC was originally the Chicago & Illinois Southern and continued along the lakefront to the sand mines near what is now Ogden Dunes. Around 1900 when what is now US Steel Gary Works was being built, an arrangement was worked out with NYC and B&O to relocate their lines further south to release more lakefront acreage for the mill. The CI&S between Indiana Harbor and the mill site was sold to the Chicago Lake Shore & Eastern, an Elgin Joliet & Eastern subsidiary. The EJ&E then built the Gary & Western between Gibson and east of the new mill so the CI&S could access the sand mines east of there, and sold it to CI&S upon completion. The old CI&S then became part of the CLS&E line connecting Gary Works and South Works, with CI&S only keeping the line as far as the Lakefront Yard. At some point (1930s?) CI&S became part of IHB, with line south of Osborne (CI&S extended to Danville) becoming NYC.

IHB gave up on the Gary & Western in stages, first building a connection to NYC east of Miller in 1960s and using the rest for dead car storage, then after the sand mines were replaced by Midwest Steel and Bethlehem Steel gave up the line entirely in lieu of trackage rights on NYC from Indiana Harbor.

Another Arturo Gross Flickr Photo, this one showing Conrail engines pulling a steel coil train in 1988.

Arturo Gross Flickr 2018 Photo showing a CN train coming off the Kankakee Belt onto NS/NYC tracks to work it way over to the CN/EJ&E Kirk Yard. (source)

2 photos Aug 9, 2021