NorthAmericanInterlockings: photo photo photo photo photo
Chicago and Northern Indiana Railroad Interlocking Towers
 |
| David Daruszka posted Peter Zimmermann A different tower than too! Bob Lalich Most likely there were two towers at Gresham at this time, shortly after elevation. |
According to a comment below by Bob Lalich, the current tower started operation in 1953. The above tower at the north end of the junction would have helped the main tower down where the two branch lines crossed the mainline.
 |
| 1929 Blue Island Quadrangle @ 1:24,000 |
 |
| Bill Molony posted This is the Rock Island's tower at 91st Street and Vincennes Avenue as it looked on July 15th, 1989. Photograph by Bob Storozuk. From the Blackhawk collection Derrick James: That’s Mahalia Jackson School in the background, just over the Suburban Line embankment. Tower is at 89th Street.Gary Knight: GRESHAM Interlocking plant, a English manufactured control machine all by syquence switches..with 56 GRS 110volt DC power switches, derails movable point frogs n double slip switches...all color light signals....mostly on bridges B & O and C & O crossed here as did our freight lines and of course our pristine suburban commuter line n main line services...one heck of a great experience. Bill Molony shared |
Jason Bird posted the following three photos with the comment "Rock Island Gresham tower. Retired."
The third picture had some comments. To summarize: Left: Chicago, right: Joliet, bottom: Metra's subline (Beverly district), top: South Chicago Branch. The lines up the center was the connection between the two branches. At one time the B&O used the two branches and that connection to go west to Beverly Hills where they had a track that went north to meet their B&OCT tracks up the Western Corridor.
 |
| 1 |
 |
| 2 |
 |
| 3 |
Looking at the left side of the third picture, the turnout on the bottom was the "Wall Track" connector to the BRC.
This 1916 map shows all of the tracks mentioned on the control board at the junction. I added a yellow rectangle to highlight the junction. Today, the connector between the two branches and the yard is gone.
Not only did the connector between the branches exist in 1938, you can see streetcar tracks in Halsted. I added a red rectangle where the pre-1953 tower stood.
 |
| 1916 |
 |
| Satellite |
Not only did the connector between the branches exist in 1938, you can see streetcar tracks in Halsted. I added a red rectangle where the pre-1953 tower stood.
 |
| 1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP |
 |
| Bob Lalich commented on a post There are a fair number of photos and other information about the CRIP South Chicago Branch to be found on the internet. Here is a diagram of Gresham Jct taken from an article describing the new interlocking machine installed in 1953. What in particular are you looking for? Ron Hull I do remember the tracks from the Rock Island/B&O/C&O/Pier Marquette being immediately to the south of the Rock Island suburban line, and even crossing them when driving south on Vincennes. Gresham tower controlled the movements through the junction. Pretty sure the B&O/C&O/PM passenger trains used the station at 63rd and Oakley used this line to gain entry to their home rails on the far east side. There was a North leg of the wye at about 89th street that connected with the Pennsy panhandle. The non-Pennsy passenger trains used the panhandle from about 81st street to the above referenced wye. From the wye they went east until they gained their own main line at 96th Street and the Calumet River bridges. [I'm going to have to read that about 10 times with a map close by. That is a lot of information.] Emile John Buteau Back in the late '60s I was on a Rock Island Suburban line at 89th, and we were held while the Capitol Ltd. came thru and when it slowed I waved to Brooks Robinson in the diner car. When I mentioned this once before, everyone said I must've been dreaming. Thanks for your msg. |
 |
| David Daruszka commented on a posting Gresham on the Sanborn maps |
 |
| David Daruszka commented on a posting Gresham continued William L. Brushaber Drawing highly inaccurate, only 2 tracks across Halsted st., I have worked the Englewood job and the Bridgeworks which used Gresham yard to store cars and switch local industries. David Daruszka The map is from the early 1900's. |
 |
| Bob Lalich commented on a posting FWIW, the 1915 smoke abatement book maps show three CRIP tracks crossing Halsted. |
 |
| Richard Mead posted David DaruszkaDavid is an administrator in this group. Gresham Junction where the Beverly Sub meets the mainline. [The Alco diesel has blacker smoke than the Alco steam engine.] Dyadya Abdul Diesel locomotives only promised to run cheaper, not cleaner. That's changed these days. |
 |
| Street View of the Beverly Branch connection |
 |
| Marty Bernard posted 3. CRI&P RS-3 493 in Chicago, IL at 89th and Vincennes on December 31, 1964. This outbound commuter train is turning on to the Beverly Branch from the mainline. Those were the B&OCT tracks in the foreground. |
 |
| Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's post The tracks in the foreground were also Rock Island tracks in this Gresham Junction. They used to connect the RI branch to the Rock Island Junction on the east side with the Beverly Hills branch. They have since been removed. The B&O passenger trains used these RI tracks to get from the Rock Island Junction to tracks the B&OCT added to join the RI at Beverly Junction where the Beverly Branch curves south. This 1929 topo excerpt shows not only the east/west crossing tracks in Gresham, it shows the segment that B&OCT built between the RI tracks and its mainline that was further north. That B&OCT segment parallels the Pennsy's Panhandle route. 1953 Blue Island and Calumet Lake Quadrangles @ 1:24,000 |
 |
| Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's post David Daruszka has uploaded this Sanborn map that details the tracks in the foreground and part of the connector on which the train is travelling. |
William Shapotkin posted five photos with the comment:
One of fellows that I know on this group asked if I had any pix of Gresham Tower (89th/Vincenne in Chicago). I have a whole bunch of them on slides, but here are some images I had scanned a while back (I am a contributor to a fellows blog called "North American Interlockings"). The interior photo is (if I recall correctly) from a Rock Island employee magazine. The pix I took myself were an occasion when my (then) ten-year old son and I took CTA's #24 -- Wentworth bus out to the tower to take pix. (The bus no longer operates that far south on Vincennes.)
 |
| 1 |
 |
| 2 |
 |
| 3 |
 |
| 4 |
 |
| 5 |
 |
| Jimi Krentkowski posted This is Gresham tower, it ran along the old B&OCT . You can kind of see the right of way in the tower picture and the other picture is where the B&O crossed the Rock island. Does anybody have info or pictures they can share on this line? I barely remember it as a kid as I believe they tore up the line in the late 70s Thomas White The tower was a Rock Island tower. The line that B&O and C&O passenger trains (and occasional all-Forest Hill or all-Robey trains) used between Beverly Jct. and Rock Island Jct. was Rock Island. |
 |
| BRHS posted The Rock Island's tower at 91st and Vincennes - July 15th, 1989. Still there?  Yes, but not in use as an interlocking tower. That is now under the control of the CTC Dispatcher. |
 |
| David Daruszka posted Time for a pop quiz. Name the railroad and name the interlocking. David Dote: Gresham? Think the push button machine gave it away. |
 |
| Jon Roma commented on David's post Here's an uncropped version of the picture. |
 |
| Jon Roma commented on David's post The Rock Island had a penchant for buying oddball equipment, be it motive power or anything else. This interlocking was a "sequence switch interlocking control system" manufactured by the Standard Telephones & Cables Ltd., in London, England. There were only two other instances of this type of machine ever built. The other two were in England, and of course the Rock Island couldn't pass up something oddball, so the third was installed at Gresham interlocking on Chicago's South Side in 1952-53. This machine remained in service around the clock well into the Metra era. I was able to arrange with Metra for a tour of the tower in 2008, and the best pictures from that shoot are at Gresham Tower closed on January 31, 2010, with control being remoted to Metra's consolidated control facility on S. Canal St. The 1953 track layout is shown below. Over the years (both before and after the tower's closing), the track layout has changed considerably. For one thing, the tracks formerly used by B&O and C&O passenger trains to connect to the Rock Island's Suburban Branch until 1971 have been removed. Those trains traveled to Beverly Jct., diverged from the Rock Island, and crossed and then parallelled the PRR Panhandle line northward toward 75th St., Brighton Park, and beyond. Speaking of "oddball", the Rock Island's search for the bizarre wasn't limited to the English-speaking world. In 1955, they drew up a proposal for a German-made classification yard system for Silvis Yard (in the Quad Cities). It is a bit jarring to run across terms like "Silvis Elektrischer Speicher Speicherwiederholerrelais" proposed by an unspecified manufacturer. One can certainly give the railroad credit for "thinking outside the box", but for the perpetually anemic Rock Island to hunt down one-off equipment from abroad stretches logic a bit. |
 |
| Dennis DeBruler commented on David's post The tower appears to be extant: https://maps.app.goo.gl/tgNEPGEBtqLSB2EU9 This 1929 Blue Island Quadrangle @ 1:24,000 shows how the junction used to accommodate east/west traffic such as the B&O and C&O passenger trains. |
 |
| 27:53 video |
The southwest bound Chicago Surface Lines Street Car Tracks S curved from Vincennes Ave. as they came from under the Rock Island Suburban Line at 89th Street to private right of way that ran alongside the Rock Island Main all the way to 119th Street and crossed the Rock Island connector (used by the B&O and C&O ex Pere Marquette) at grade and was not interlocked. Street car conductor flagged the crossing.
ReplyDeleteHello Jason Bird and William Shapotkin:
ReplyDeleteJason – May I use (and give credit to you) your two Gresham Tower control-panel photos.
William – May I use (and give credit to you) your one Gresham Tower control-panel photo.
Permission is requested only to use the photos on the Facebook “Railroad Interlocking and Signal Towers” Group, with the following story line:
Most of us tower folk in the USA have worked unit lever machines of various types, where there is an individual lever of some type for each signal and each switch. Some of the older interlocking machines had multiple levers for some signals, such as a separate lever for each route and signal head.
Some of us were also able to work Entrance Exit (NX) machines, which came onto the scene in the late 1930s. Typically, you would press the entrance button and then select the exit button, and bingo, the route would align.
Over in Britain, I ran into a few OCS panels where for each signal there was a separate button for each possible route. Push just one of the buttons for a signal, and the selected route (if available) would be automatically aligned.
Wikipedia defines One Control Switch (OCS) (paraphrased slightly by me for American clarity) as follows:
A separate button is provided for every signalled route. There will be as many buttons per signal as there are routes (i.e. signalled destinations) from that signal. To set the desired route, the relevant button is operated. All points (aka switches) within the route are automatically set to the required position.
From J. B. (Jim) Calvert’s writings:
Route-relay interlocking was taken up by the LNER in the 1930's. Rotary thumbswitches were used, and the route set up was shown by white lights on a track diagram. Track circuits detected the presence of trains. This system became the O.C.S. (One Control Switch) system widely used on British Railways.
My point for writing this is because I ran into one such OCS interlocking here in the USA – the Rock Island Gresham Tower near Chicago.
For each signal, there was a “dial” “rotary switch” to select the desired route. My personal photos are very, very poor. There are some excellent photos on the Internet of Gresham Tower and the rather large interlocking machine (and its “dials”). Gresham Tower had a very unusual American interlocking machine.
If anyone has good photos, please put them up with an appropriate comment.
Steve McEvoy
samcevoy@aol.com