(see below for satellite information)
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Mike Delaney posted W.W. Holloway at rail to water on the Calumet River Chicago. Robert Haller: Days of old, made many loads up to Valley Power Plant in Milwaukee. |
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Lou Gerad posted Robert C. Norton at Rail to Water in South Chicago, 1974. Dan Vandenberg: Great picture! In more recent years called KCBX. Now I'm wondering...is KCBX still shipping coal from there? Haven't seen much posted on boats loading there recently. |
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Comments on Lou's post |
That would be part of the Rail to Water on the left and the
100th Street Bridge is in the air.
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Mike Delaney posted The International heading up river on the Calumet. Anybody who has heard the horn on this thing would know which one it was long before you saw it. I know I posted this shot before somewhere but it shows the care and pride these companies took in their vessels no matter how old. Both this and the Harvester were in mint and I mean mint and pristine condition. I wish I could have sailed in that tiny fleet. She was my favorite oldy and it was my pleasure to see her up close. I almost cry when I look at this shot. Boat gone, International Steel plant is gone. [The steel plant it was headed to was Wisconsin Steel.] Scott Liberty: Many people don’t know that the red and black IH logo is an abstract representation of a man on a tractor. [Some comments include a couple more photos of the ship on the Calumet river.] |
A facility to transload coal from rail to ships became obsolete when power plants switched from Illinois Basin coal to Power River Basin coal. Then local refineries switched to processing crude oil from Canadian tar sands. The residue product from that oil was petcoke instead of asphalt. So the facility switched to transloading petcoke to ships.
But the dust blown off the piles was a serious pollution hazard, so then it became nothing.
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Mike Delaney posted Calumet River Chicago. Cliffs Victory on the left and some foreign rusted out crapcan on the right at Rail to Water. This was during a brief iron miners strike so the Victory was layed up wet. Lots of opinions on the Calumet, Rouge and Cuyahoga rivers as far as pollution goes. We kicked up a dead body in this river with the bow thruster on the Grace heading for Interlake Iron farther up the river. Didn't get to see it myself. Did the same thing in the Cuyahoga on the Snyder Jr. backing into the turning basin coming from Republic Steel with the prop. I did get to see that one. The deceased was wearing a brown suite covered with crabs. The Coast Guard came and picked up the body put him in a bodybag with his feet sticking out layed him on the rear platform on the outside back of the boat and down the river they went with several pleasure boats following taking pics. Couple years later on the Ayers I was being lowered to the J&L steel dock on the Cuyahoga river, they lowered me to soon to fast and I ended up in the water up to my chest and was between the boat and the dock in between two giant earthmover tires hanging from the dock as the boat came in. took four guys to pull me back up and out enough to climb onto the tire. Everybody was heaving the blocks over and bedlam was going on the deck as man overboard was called. I got back on board wearing about 20lbs of Cuyahoga river. mate says you OK, I said great time for a swim. Says go take a shower and wash your clothes your done for the night. I would rather have swam in the Rouge. [That is the 100th Street Bridge in the foreground.] |
Today conveyor belts have developed well enough that the material is stored in piles. Before that, coal was stored in hopper cars. That is why most of the land back then was used for yard tracks. Then a lot of those tracks were removed to create land for the storage piles. You can see that evolution of hopper to pile storage in
the still active coal docks in Newport News, VA.
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Bob Lalich commented on Nick Fry's share Here is a Life magazine photo of the elevator taken in 1951. Bob Lalich Dennis DeBruler - the hoppers are coal for Rail To Water. |
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Dennis DeBruler replied to Bob's comment This photo shows the many tracks north of the elevator in this 1977 topo was used for storage. Are those iron ore cars? They look rather short.
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Bob Lalich Flickr, Aug 1984
BRC 100th st Yard
BRC TR4 set switches Rail To Water near 100th St, 8-84. |