Gresham Tower: Rock Island vs. Rock Island and B&OCT

(no CRJ, 3D Satellite)
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."

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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.

Looking at the left side of the third picture, the turnout on the bottom was the "Wall Track" connector to the BRC.

1916

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.

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.)

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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.

Joseph Da Hoff

Still there?

David Daruszka

Yes, but not in use as an interlocking tower. That is now under the control of the CTC Dispatcher.

USGS 1929 Blue Island Topo Excerpt

1915 Smoke Abatement Report

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 

 https://www.flickr.com/.../jonroma/albums/72157607452357319/.

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

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

RR Donnelley & Sons Printing

The Lakeside Press building has its own posting. Donnelley may have left Chicago, but they have not left Illinois.

Satellite

I know of a RR Donnelley plant that still exists in Dwight, IL, because I passed it when I took IL-47 to Champagne instead of I-57 because my twin daughters were learning to drive. (I drove on I-55 and got off at Dwight so that they could drive IL-47 to I-74 where I drove again.) Not only is the plant a more modern one-story plant, it has rail service and the trucks don't have to deal with Chicago traffic jams on the Interstates.

Google finds three plants in St. Charles: Kirk, Wallace, and Stern. Google is now labeling the plant in Aurora as Kellogg.  A streetview confirms that Kellogg uses it. But they still have a sign on the Eola side, so is it now a shared facility? It looks like the office in Elgin uses just the first floor. Donnelley shut down a plant in Hillside, IL in 2009. (DMN)

I could not find a history page on their web site, but I did learn their sales was $11.6 billion in 2014 and that they have 65,000 employees worldwide. Fortunately, a Google Search did find a timeline. It is a shame that they don't have a History link to this timeline on their About page. From this timeline I learned that they moved to the Calumet Plant in 1929 and that the plant was granted national historic landmark status in 1983.

Timeline6, 1967

In 1967 they open a "greeen field" operation in Mattoon, IL:

Satellite

Timeline6, 1970

In 1970 they opened a new production facility in Glasgow, KY.

The Elgin, IL plant linked above was their new "photo-composition center" opened in 1974.

They must like Kentucky because in 1985 they opened a production facility in Danville, KY.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

I wondered about rail access when the Calumet Ave. Plant was still a production facility. There must have been some industrial spurs between the building and IC's electrical service tracks. The McCormick Place Busway probably reuses some of this industrial spur land.

Update: while driving south on I-55, I noticed an "RR Donnelley" sign on a building and Google labels it a distribution center. Since they used to print the Sears Catalog and Yellow Pages, they developed the logistics to distribute items across the country. They now distribute stuff for other companies as well.

On my way home from a field trip down the Fox River, I took Ferry Road back home. When I first moved to the area in the 1970s, this area used to be a quarry. It has been filled in and an exit on I-88 has been added to make an office park. I noticed an RR Donnelley sign on a building in the northeast quadrant of Winfield and Ferry Road. They label that a "Corporate Campus." They now have three buildings along I-88. In Downers Grove they have a "Business Management Consultant" office. It looks like just another big house. I have already described the one on Eola Road above as the "Kellogg" building.

Two NYC Bridges over the Kankakee River in Kankakee, IL

(Bridge Hunter Belt, Bridge Hunter K&S, no Historic Bridges)

The Kankakee Belt was part of the NYC. The NYC also controlled the Big Four, which operated the Kankakee & Seneca. So NYC had two different routes going east/west through Kankakee, IL that crossed the Kankakee River on the west side of town. The Kankakee Belt route is now used by Norfolk Southern. (Update: I already had a posting on the Belt bridge.)

Satellite

20160603 3433

I followed the NYC tracks from their junction with the IC by following the roads west and east as I was forced to turn. I ended up at the end of Stone Street where I added a mark on the above satellite image. You can see the deck girders of the Kankakee Belt track going across Kennedy Drive and the river. I then backtracked to get onto Kennedy Drive (US-52). Driving north I saw a little park by the river but not soon enough to safely make a left-hand turn into it. So I continued up to River Place where I could safely turn around and go back and turn into that park. While on River Place, I took a picture of the north elevation of the bridge.

I parked the van and walked along the sandy/muddy "beach" to get a shot of the south elevation.

Using GIMP to crank up the exposure by 1.5 stops.

Note the Belt route has five piers. Let's number the Belt piers from right to left (east to west). The abandoned piers of the K&S are on the right side of Pier 1 and between Piers 2 and 3. The second K&S pier is covered with some trees so it is hard to see it against the background of the shore trees.

The Bing map has a better view of the various piers. And you can clearly see the V-shape on the upstream side of the piers to help break up ice flows.

Birds-Eye View

The Piers 1 and 3 have a stone base and a concrete tower added on top. I'm sure that the current bridge is a steel girder bridge that replaced a former truss bridge that rested on the stone piers. Since the depth of the girders is less than the depth of the trusses, they had to add the "towers" on the stone piers to maintain the original track height. Note Piers 2 and 4 are completely concrete. That is because the girder spans are half the length of the truss spans so piers 2 and 4 had to be added when the bridge was upgraded. Note that the old piers align with the K&S piers.

Dan Tracy shared
Taken on March 20, 1942, this photograph shows a steam crane mounted on a flat car placing the last section of the New York Central's new bridge spanning the Kankakee River. The bridge is located at Kankakee's Kennedy Drive.

A different exposure:

Kankakee County Museum posted
This photo, taken 83 years ago today on March 20, 1942, captures the replacement of a section of the New York Central Railroad Bridge that passes over the Kankakee River.

George Mosier Jr.: Here’s more information on this bridge  http://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../two-nyc-bridges...

Joseph Obrien shared

Gabriel Birkey: How did they connect to each end of the span if they were coming from different sides of the bridge? [I was wondering that also.]

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

I was expecting to see an old truss bridge in 1939 since the above photo shows that steel girders were installed in 1942. But the shadow and number of piers look like a steel girder bridge. Were they building a second girder bridge in 1942? (Update: maybe they were upgrading the girders in an existing bridge.)

The river was higher when Gene Smania took a picture in Feb. 2012

The river is very high in this photo. We don't even see the stone part of the piers.

American-Rails.com posted

New York Centra's train #406, the southbound "Carolina Special," hustles across the Kankakee River at Kankakee, Illinois during the 1950s. A.C. Kalmbach photo. American-Rails.com collection.

https://www.american-rails.com/york.html

Greg Burnet shared

Ken Smith posted six photos with the comment: "the NS bridge over the Kankakee river in Kankakee Illinois...formerly NYC, PC, and Conrail...photos by Ken Smith..."

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Kankakee County Museum from Bridge Hunter
Westbound train on the bridge. Post rebuild Circa 1920 History: Built in 1882. Rebuilt from a Howe Truss to a Deck Truss in 1915. Demolished 1933.
[Note the Kankakee Belt bridge in the background.]

Kerry Bruck posted
In 1885 a 40 car flour special was run across the K&S to Kankakee. led by CCC&STL Big Four 4-4-0 type

The brown bridge in the background of this photo taught me that they have built a trail bridge on the Kankakee & Seneca RoW. Judging by this photo, they tore out the old piers and built new ones.

George Mosier Jr. posted
UP 7292 NS 3664 west bound mixed train on Kankakee River 6-7-20

Brandon Elliott posted

B14 heads over the Kankakee River

10/13/20

Kankakee, IL

Before the trail bridge was built. 

Bill McCabe posted
Back just a few years...

This street view catches both the NS/NYC Kankakee Belt and the trail bridges.

Street View