Rock Island to BRC "Wall Track" Connection

(Satellite, the Wall Track 79th Street overpass now has trees instead of track)

In a quote from Train Orders in Blue Island Yard is the text:

To go to BRC the transfer crew (aka Yard crew) train would come out of Blue Island Yard and head north (timetable east) toward Gresham Tower.  Gresham would line them toward "Wall Track"  (because it went down along west side the Rock Island elevation) which went down to BRC track level at 80th St  At bottom of hill track became BRC's to Belt Jct.  When got signal at Belt Jct would head toward Clearing Yard East Sub and into east receiving yard.  Your track number would be displayed on a board at Hayford Tower.  At Belt Jct one could also go straight into Wabash Landers Yard.  Never heard of a RI crew doing that while I was there.

The railroads in Chicago were required to separate their tracks from the roads during the first part of the 20th Century. And if the railroads wanted to cross with a grade separation, that means that one of them is twice as high. As an example, let us consider the Rock Island (now Metra) going over the BRC+C&WI+Wabash (now BRC+NS) corridor at 79th Street.

79th Streetview, looking West

79th Streetvew, looking East

Birds-Eye View, looking West

Birds-Eye View, looking East

In the "birds-eye view, looking East" image you can see a vegetation covered route along the Rock Island's embankment wall on the right, across a 79th Street overpass, and along the BRC tracks. This is part of the "Wall Track" connection between Rock Island and BRC. In the "looking East streetview," you can see a narrow overpass for the connector separate from the corridor overpass behind it.

Satellite

South of 81st Street (to the right), you can see where there used to be a tower back in the "arm-strong days" that controlled the turnout to the connector and crossover switches that allowed trains to get to the connector.

Satellite

In fact, on the left you can see an isolated segment of track that was probably part of the connector. There is also an isolated segment on the right. I'm surprised that the illegal scrappers have yet to snarf the rails. An 81st streetview indicates that the Rock overpass was at a normal height. So the Rock climbs the height of a train overpass in just two blocks. The grade profile between Blue Island and La Salle Street Station must be a bit of a roller coaster, especially since CREATE P1 created another "double high" elevation. Note that freight trains don't use this stretch because they would have stopped south of here at Blue Island Yard. Passenger trains have more horsepower pulling them so that they can accelerate quickly after station stops. So they have enough horsepower to deal with the grades of a roller coaster.

At the 80th streetview, we can see the Rock connection is at regular height, but the Rock mainline is significantly higher because it is climbing up to the BRC overpass. And in the background we can see the corridor overpass.

At 78th Street, the connector is now part of the BRC corridor and the Rock in the background isstill high. Note on the right that we can see the end of the Rock's bridge over the corridor. At 76th Street, the Rock is still significantly elevated. I wonder why the grade on the north side is more gentle than on the south side. At 75 Street, it is still descending, and it is back to a normal height at 74th Street of just 12'8".

78th Streetview, looking East