Saturday, January 9, 2016

CN/IC's Hawthorne Yard and Roundhouse

Crawford Yard was east of this yard. Hawthorne Depot

(Update: an index of IC's Chicagoland yards and roundhouses
There used to be a depot on the north side of the tracks and east of Laramie Ave.)

Satellite
To my surprise, this Canadian National yard is still full of tracks and is being used.
1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Bill Molony posted
Various steam locomotives at the Illinois Central's Hawthorne Yard roundhouse in Cicero.

The roundhouse used to be twice as big.
At photo resolution

Bill Molony posting
Bill posted again
Bill's comment:
Illinois Central Railroad 0-8-2 Hump-type #3678 at Hawthorne Yard in Cicero, Illinois on June 6, 1946.

Stuart Pearson added:
This Locomotive looked like a rebuild to me, and Lo & Behold it is. Initially ,it was a 2-8-2 Built in 1911. As IC improved their Power they merely made a Stocky Switch Engine out of this one + some others from its Class.



Michael Wayne Sitter posted

Michael Wayne Sitter posted
Michael's comment:
In the winter of 1987/88, former ICG and MILW units are gathered at Hawthorn Yard in Chicago. The 8045 was the unit used on the last run on the Gruber in December of 1985 between La Salle and Freeport, IL. Nice to see an old friend! The MILW units are yet to get patched with Green Diamond logos. Could be new to the property.-Michael W. Sitter
The MILW units are rebuilt GP9s which were reclassified GP20s. The ICG units are GP7 and GP9s rebuilt into GP8, GP10, and GP11. All home shop rebuilds.
See CC&P for Steven J. Brown's picture at Hawthorne Yard.
Jack Voss posted two photos with the comment: "Locomotive turntable located at 34th Street and Laramie Avenue across from Sportsman's Park."
Gary Petranek This is now a parking lot. This was around into the 60s.
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Jack Voss posted
Cicero, Illinois. Laramie Avenue and 34th Street. 1968?
Karl Beetschen: It’s directly west of Sportsman’s Park. The roundhouse burned when I was a child and tracks pulled and turntable filled in. It was just north of Becker Bros. Carbon company. North of 34th is Hawthorne yard which actually had a small TOFC 2 track loading ramp. They backed the trailers onto the flat cars. That was a skill! I’d love to see photos of that now.
James Ashby posted
BNSF Cicero Yard (Chicago Area) from the air in March 2006. This image is looking West (Bottom) to East and was captured from a commercial flight taking off, from nearby Midway Airport. The road passing over the yards is Laramie Avenue.
[This photo also catches Hawthorne Yard on the right.]
John Baletto posted three photos with the comment: "CC&P GP28 #9438 & GP10 # 8234 at Hawthorne yard. Cicero , IL 1996"
Chris Schultz Man, I used to live in Glendale Heights and you could hear those GP-10s trying their hardest to pull a train westbound. It’s a slight but long uphill grade west of Addison. They’d be wide open and you’d hear them for ten or fifteen minutes.
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1953 Berwyn and Englewood Quads @ 24,000

Joseph Santucci posted CCP GP8 7995 showing that CCP's livery including the IC inspired "green diamond" in a 1987 photo. He also describes driving the Hawthorne Transfer to Markham Yard.

A comment added to a posting:
Fred Van Dorpe I might be wrong on some of this info, so if anyone wants to correct me please do so.

M337 runs late morning ish to Hawthorne yard from Markham yard, and they work the West end of Hawthorne yard for a few hours and then finally depart West in the even
ing. M338 is usually a late evening train, often after dark its getting close to Hawthorne. Sometimes its in the middle of the night, like 2 or 3am. 

Theres another manifest that comes off the NS Chicago line that gets the symbol M346 I think, that sometimes uses the Freeport sub from Hawthorne junction hopping off the BRC, and hops off the Freeport at Broadview to use IHB to get to B12/Schillar Park, instead of using the CP Elgin sub to B12. And theres another maniest that is Southbound from Wisconsin, that will hop off the EJE at Munger, and run Eastbound to Hawthorne junction, or will run to B12 and use the IHB to get to the Freeport sub at Broadview. I dont know times or what the chances are for these trains to use the Freeport sub, but I know it happens.

Theres a Westbound oil train in the morning, and an Eastbound oil train in (I think) the early morning. There may be another oil train too.

Grain trains can happen at any time. 

The "Addison local" as people call it, L527 is the symbol, works weekdays only and leaves Hawthorne around 9am, goes out to work a semi big industrial park in Carol Stream, IL, then heads back to work Addison and/or an industry in Villa Park. (depends on what days certain customers get served) And is usuallly heading East back to Hawthorne between 2 and 4pm. (Idk why people call it the Addison local when its doing most of its work in Carol Steam)

Generally the line is dead, and you cant rely on the radio frequency much to know when a train is coming. ATCS is your best way of knowing when something is coming, and then playing the waiting game.



Arturo Gross Flickr 1998 Photo (Facebook posting)
Dennis DeBruler The former Western Electric water tower and crossover switches confirm you took this from the 31st overpass. In the background, you can see the bridge trusses from when Ogden Avenue used to go over CB&Q's Cicero Yard. Because of all of the CN power, I'm speculating that this train is headed to the CN Hawthorne Yard instead of Clearinghttp://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../cnics-hawthorne...

Arturo Gross Hmmm, this was before the CN takeover of the IC, but I think these CN trains off the BN/BNSF continued to use Clearing Yard even after. That said, I don't recall specifically on this train.

Dennis DeBruler I checked my cheatsheet for merger dates, and it is not clear why there was so much CN painted power in Chicago in 1998. http://www.r2parks.net/big7.html#cngen I also need to learn when the Class I railroads changed their hump yards to intermodal yards because the number of mixed freight trains became small enough that Clearing could handle them. Like I said, an interesting photo.

Arturo Gross At this point CN had trackage (haulage?) rights on BN/BNSF and sent several trains a day that route, from a DW&P connection, I believe. Like this one, they would take to the BRC at Cicero and head for Clearing Yard. Much of the traffic from the GTW was also using Clearing Yard by the 1990s, and GTW's Elsdon Yard was sidelined. Obviously with the IC and WC takeovers, the CN presence increased in the 2000s, but they were already regular common in Chicago.

Dennis DeBruler CN using BN rather heavily to access Chicago directly was something that I did not know. Thanks for the info. That explains a lot.

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