Chicago & Eastern Illinois (C&EI) Freight Houses

Bernard Wybrecht posted
ATSF U28CG 356 with train -16, The Texas Chief pulling into Dearborn Station, Chicago, Illinois. Hote 3 Hi Level Chair cars on Februry 2, 1968😉😍 Winter snowy day . 
 A Roger Puta Photography ..
Dennis DeBruler shared
Snow has to make walking on the running boards even more "exciting."
Edward Kwiatkowski shared

Dennis DeBruler commented on Edward's share
Roger was standing on Roosevelt Road and facing a little west of South. The two story building attached to a one story building is the classic design of a freight house. The freight was sorted in the one-story part while the waybills were sorted in the two-story office part. In this case, it was the C&EI freight house. Peaking over the top of the end of the C&EI freight house is the Erie freight house. The brick office building part was four stories.
The attached image would be Roger's view today. The train is on the land of today's Federal Street. (In the 1960s, Federal Street did not exist south of Roosevelt.) The residential units are on the land used by the freight houses. The C&EI was between Roosevelt & 14th Street and the Erie was between 14th & 15th Streets.
 https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4...

Marke Llanuza posted
Its 1975 the Orland Park commuter train coming into Dearborn Polk station.
[CE&I Inbound Freight House on the right with the Erie freight house peaking out behind it.]

1964 Dearborn

Bill Molony posted
Grand Trunk Western class U-3-c 4-8-4 Northern-type #6332 getting ready to depart from Dearborn Station in Chicago on a sunny morning in the 1950's with train #20, The Maple Leaf, bound for Port Huron, Michigan and Toronto, Canada.
[This correction comes from a share: Curt Danielewicz Group Admin U3b. GTW 4-8-4’s were U3a (sent packing to CN when the U3b were delivered), U3b and the streamlined U4b classes.
My interest in this photo is that beyond the tracks it provides a nice overview of the C&EI Outbound Freight House.]

Mike Breski posted

CHICAGO & EASTERN ILLINOIS FREIGHT HOUSE

The Chicago & Eastern Illinois operated this freight house in Chicago near Dearborn Station. Four tracks paralleled the long, low structure. Note the sign painted on the building advertising C&EI’s air-conditioned passenger trains.
Chicago & Eastern Illinois photo

******DESCRIPTION AS IS FROM PHOTO SOURCE******

https://ctr.trains.com/photo-of-the-day/2013/10/chicago-and-eastern-illinois-freight-house

David Daruszka They would line up the box car doors so they could be bridged and loaded or unloaded.
John Mann Worked really well with 40 foot cars!
Bob Lalich That is the outbound house north of Roosevelt Road. The C&EI inbound house was south of Roosevelt Road.
John Kenney Note the tell tales in the foreground.

Jim Mercer I railroaded for 39 yrs. but don't know what tell tales are.
Dewey Cheatem Andhowe Jim Mercer When I ran Amtrak trains on the Metro-North Hudson Line in the mid-90's, they had "tell tales" a few miles north of Croton-Harmon. These tell tales detected whether there was anything sticking out from the train at third-rail level (third-rail electric began at Croton). If any part of your train hit the tell tale, it would send a signal to the Dispatcher who would contact you to stop and inspect your train.
Thanks for bringing back memories
Jim Mercer Kind of like the high and wide detector we had and still have approaching the Thebes bridge into Mo. to Illmo- Scott City. Union Pacific Been retired since 2012.
Larry Grzywinski Tell tales were strung over the tracks to warn a crew member riding on top of a box car that there was close overhead clearance. In the good old days ladders allowed one to climb up to the roof so that in close clearance like in the photo the engineer could see the swithman giving him hand signals.

Mike Breski shared
Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Historical Society If you would like to learn more about the history of the freight houses of the C&EI Railroad at Dearborn Station our Fall 2018 issue has an outstanding article by Rich Jurgovan complete with numerous photos. The issue is available via our web site www.ceihs.org.

Bill Molony posted
Chicago & Eastern Illinois EMD FP7 #1607, assisted by an EMD E7A, easing out of Dearborn Station with a southbound train on a bright sunny morning.
[ Note the "RAILROAD FOR GOOD SERVICE C&EI" sign on the left side of the photo. That is the C&EI Outbound Freight House.]
Randy James Notice the nc&stl baggage car, I believe this is the Dixie flyer, that was jointly operated by c&ei, l&n, nc&stl , from Chicago to Atlanta Georgia.
Robert Gibson Jr. The Dixie Flyer left at 10:30PM. The Dixieland left at 9:10AM.
Bob Lalich I can give a range on the date of the photo. The switchtender job and manual switches in the throat were eliminated in 1964. The mail/express platform behind the Erie boxcars was built around 1950.
Robert Gibson Jr. By 1958 all of the C&EI southbound trains left at night.
Tom Skowronski Probably very early '50's. The (I think) beautiful orange/blue scheme disappeared quickly. Great photo, Bill. LOVE your C&WI book!
Robert Gibson Jr. This is probably train No. 1 a local that left Chicago at 9:00 AM terminating in Evansville, Indiana at 2:35 PM. The photo shows an Railway Post Office car behind the baggage car.

Mid-Century Decatur posted

The southbound N&W "Banner Blue" accelerates out of Chicago's Dearborn Station, past the boxcars lined up at the Chicago & Eastern Illinois freight station, at 11:00 AM on March 13, 1966, exactly 58 years ago today.

The train will arrive in Decatur by 2 pm and St. Louis Union Station by 4:35.

Photo: Tom Golden, Collection of Sam Bec

Richard Fiedler shared

Ron Hull: I watched that freight shed burn back in the ‘50’s.

Bob Lalich: This train is inbound about to pass under Roosevelt Road.

David Daruszka shared
Classic Streamliners posted
Ray Weart The renumbering of the ATSF FP45's had nothing to do with Amtrak. They had a big system renumbering of most of their motive power at that time. In the 1990's they got renumbered again.
[Note the C&EI Outbound Freight House on the left. The Railway Express building and the mail platform is in the middle.]

The Blackhawk Railway Historical Society posted
Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad Alco RS-1 #258.
Bob Lalich Shorts???
David Daruszka I guess things ran a little looser back then, or he's the guy they wrote the rule for. Someone once told me that every rule in the rule book had some idiot behind it doing something stupid.

Raymond Barr What intrigues me is the brick building that seems to go on forever with dock doors and the green grass area in front of it. The grass area is wide enough to have held at least two tracks. Can you imagine back in the forty foot boxcar days what a scene this would have been with the cars parked door to door and the crowd of workers rushing about to unload or load freight?
Sam Bergus ...and the piles of standard sized pallets adjacent to that showing why that method of loading/unloading isn't being used anymore at the time of this photo.
Alfred Fickensher Can we imagine any guesses about the arch-top loading(?) doorways alternating pattern?
Raymond Barr My guess would be that in pre-fork lift days the arch-top doors were used by two & four wheel hand carts. When fork lifts came along, the large doors were installed. You can see some disturbed brickwork above some of them.

Craig Sanders That looks like the lead into La Salle Street station based on my feeble memory. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Dennis DeBruler Since it is a C&WI switcher, it should be on the lead to Dearborn Station. I've determined the freight house is C&EI Inbound. That confirms the Dearborn Station lead.

Dennis DeBruler commented on the BRHS post
To identify the freight house, I noticed that the design is unusual in that it has the office part above the freight handling part. Normally, the office part is a two story building at one end of the freight handling part. This design made the two story part of the freight house unusually long. In this overview of the South Side, it was easy to identify two candidates south of Roosevelt. I doubled the size of the image and cropped the area of interest.
https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/.../aerial-view-of...

Dennis DeBruler commented on the BRHS post
This map reminds me that the freight house on the east side of the leads burned by the time of this photo. So that makes it C&EI Inbound.
Dennis DeBruler Mark's photo confirms the building because of the Erie freight house to the south.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/708146809323725/permalink/1087639478041121/
Dennis DeBruler A photo by Mark a year later, 1976, shows the freight house has been torn down.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/708146809323725/permalink/1087365418068527/

Mike Breski posted

STREAMLINED 4-8-4 WITH GTW’S MAPLE LEAF

At 9:52 on the morning of June 2, 1953, Grand Trunk Western U-4 No. 6410 accelerates the Toronto-bound Maple Leaf away from Dearborn Station, Chicago.
R. R. Malinoski photo

PLEASE NOTE DESCRIPTION'S ARE AS IS FROM PHOTOGRAPHER OR THE ARCHIVE IT IS FROM AND MAY HAVE INACCURACIES.

http://ctr.trains.com/photo-of-the-day/2019/02/streamlined-4-8-4-with-gtws-maple-leaf

Dennis DeBruler We recently saw the northeast part of the C&EI Inbound Freight House in the background of a photo taken from Roosevelt Road.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1270038776414622/permalink/2534147443337076/
This photo gives us a view of the southeast part of the freight house.
Lance Erickson This train connected with the Lehigh Valley Maple Leaf And had direct service to NY with through cars at one time. It became hopeless after Mail was put on trucks.

Mark Llanuza posted
Orland Park commuter train coming into Dearborn station 1976.
[But a year later the C&EI freight house was gone, and we can now see all of the Erie freight house.]

David Daruszka adjusted the exposure of a Bill Molony post

Santa Fe 4-6-2 Pacific-type #3419, drifting towards the 12th Street Tower and Dearborn Station with 17 cars of train #6, The Ranger.

May 30th, 1934 (Memorial Day).

Photographer unknown.

From the Blackhawk collection.

Dennis DeBruler: I still have to look it up in my notes. That is the C&EI inbound freight house on the right. And the Erie freight house is in the background.

Arturo Gross posted a 1970 Flickr photo
Guess what's coming soon! Snow in Chicago and U28CGs in HO from Atlas! Capturing both themes, we have Santa Fe U28CG 354 leading a train (probably the Texas Chief?) into Dearborn Station in Chicago, Feb 1970. Original Kodachrome photographer unknown, Art Gross Collection.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Arturo's post
Assuming this was taken from the Roosevelt Road Viaduct, the right side of the photo is the end of the C&EI inbound freight house and the freight houses in the background belonged to Erie.