Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Aban/Conrail/PRR (Panhandle) Dolton Yard

Satellite

Fortunately, the curves in the Little Calumet River made it pretty easy to correlate its location in the 1938 aerial with a satellite image. The red line above indicates where it was. It doesn't show up very well in this 1938 aerial, but it does show up well in 1962 and 1967 aerial photos because there are cars in the yard.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP
Ron Hull commented on a posting:
Dolton yard was on the Panhandle, located between 155th and 159th and Greenwood Ave. The yard was seven through and three stub tracks - and a RIP track too. There was also a yard clerk (Mary) and car knocker (old Steve) assigned there. The main purpose of the yard was to switch interchange brought from the IHB. A couple of road trains (CIC/CG8) would make pickups/setouts and a regular yard job (96B) from the big 59th St. yard would shuttle cars back and forth pretty much daily. The hot metal “bottle” trains passed Dolton yard daily. I used to hold the regular fireman’s job at Dolton Yard in 70’ and 71’. The job # was 120B. Today the site holds a Toyota dealership, part of a golf course and a lot of weeds. The old right of way is clearly visible on Google Maps. Because it was an outlying, small yard we rarely saw any officials. A terrific job for a very young railroader because of the late start (3:59pm) and the frequency of overtime pay. This is back when the hours of service law permitted a 16 hour shift.
Bob Lalich Dolton Yard described here was built after WWII, replacing a smaller yard near Dolton Jct. In addition to IHB, C&EI delivered there as well but the volume of that traffic was much lower.
Mike Breski Were there storage tracks between 147th and 142nd?

It is interesting to note the cut corners of buildings and the diagonal parking lots that still exist because the railroad ran through here on a diagonal.

Satellite

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