These are notes that I am writing to help me learn our industrial history. They are my best understanding, but that does not mean they are a correct understanding.
(no Satellite because these railroad facilities are long gone. These facilities were on the east side of the South Branch between Harrison and Roosevelt.)
The straightening of the river in the 1930s had a big impact on the B&O facilities in downtown Chicago.
I start with after the straightening because I have just one photo of that. And because this material was moved from the Roosevelt Road Bridge post.
I used the bridge in the background of this photo to determine where this B&OCT locomotive was running. Once I identified the bascule bridge as the Roosevelt Road Bridge, I remembered that the B&OCT was the terminal railroad for the Grand Central Station, and B&OCT had tracks on the east side of the South Branch from their bridge to the station. This freight house was built after the river was straightened and did not yet exist in the 1938 aerial photo. B&OCT had several small freight houses that fed LCL freight to B&OCT's main classification freight house. It has the classical design for a freight house --- a multi-story building with lots of windows at one end for the office workers that is attached to a one-story freight handling building. In the days of LCL freight, there were no computers, so it took a lot of office workers to help process the paper work. Each boxcar had a folder that contained the waybills of the containers that were in that boxcar. After the LCL freight was sorted in Chicago to a destination train, the conductor on that road train would get these folders along with the waybills for the carload traffic. They would have to determine from the waybills in the folders which containers were to be dropped at which depot along the route. These containers could range from a refrigerator sent by a mail-order house such as Sears to a plow. Remember, in the 1800s everything came to town on the railroad. That is why depots had a passenger weighting room on one side and a freight handling room on the other side. The depot was the life blood of the town.
Scott Griffith posted Les WuollettWaiting at dwarf signal for line up to GCS. Probably to pull passenger train to Lincoln St coach yard.
Now back to the early 1900s.
MWRD posted The South Branch of the Chicago River looking north from an area near Taylor Street in Chicago, Illinois, on November 8, 1908. MWRD posted The South Branch of the Chicago River looking north from an area near Taylor Street on November 8, 1908. Ralph Leoni: Polk / Dearborn station noted in background right!
This is another example of a big boat making it this far south on the branch.
Original Chicago posted The view is from the area of Polk Street looking toward the north in 1928. A crane is dredging a new channel in the last part of a river straightening project. The white billboard is an announcement of the project. In 1928 the final major engineering project on the river system straightened the channel of the South Branch between 18th and Polk by digging a new channel 850 feet west of Clark Street and filling the old river channel. This project improved rail access to the Loop and was part of the 1909 Burnham Plan. Paul Webb shared Dennis DeBruler shared with the comment: "This view shows some of the freight houses that used to be between Grand Central Station (note the clock tower on the right) and the river. It also shows that some big boats came down the South Branch and the Harrison Street Bridge in the raised position because of that big boat."
Thomas Karsten: The white building behind the clock tower is 175 w. Jackson and the faint outline behind is 208 s. La Salle. Looks like it’s after this section of the river was straightened.
Jeff Nichols posted Chicago River, view from Taylor, 1909. Pitt. Victor StLawrence: Looking north. The warehouse on the left is where the newer post office is. Marshall Field warehouse on the left. Paul Jevert shared [Note the trainshed and tower of Grand Central Station on the right side of this photo. And of course the freight houses along the river.]
Note the freight house between the Grand Central Station and the river in the right background.
Since I'm learning how to use the LoC's collection of Sanborn Maps, I checked out the map to the north, 71. The GTW freight house is along the river and Pere Marquette has one sandwiched between the GTW freight house and the train shed of Grand Central Station.
History's Mirror posted [I'm not copying the description because it is an example of AI gone wrong. Basically, if a statement is not a platitude, it is wrong. The dredge is in the old channel, not the new one. And "Polk and Taylor Streets" implies an intersection, but they are parallel streets. The photo below shows that the photo was taken from Taylor and we are looking at Polk Street Bridge. But it is a great photo of the freight houses and Polk Street Bridge.] Franklin Campbell shared
Dennis DeBruler: The dredge is digging in the old channel, not creating the new one. But this is a terrific photo of Polk Street Bridge.
This photo confirms that the train shed that we see in the above photo was for the Grand Central Terminal. And because it includes the Pennsy freight house, I could confirm the streets as Taylor looking at Polk.
[The date was probably c1924 because the new CUS is still being built. The tall building in the northwest quadrant of Polk Street and the river was the Marshal Field River Warehouse.]
Andrew Roth shared with the comment: "Forwarding this photo of Grand Central station and LaSalle Street Station when both station had large multi- track canopy roofs."
Thomas Manz commented on Andrew's share Rand McNally view looking W from1893
The 1891 bridge is the swing bridge in the background.
Public Domain via 1891 Bridge Hunter
1907
HAER CONN,6-LYME,5--3 3. VIEW, LOOKING NORTHWEST, SHOWING REINFORCED PIERS - New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, Niantic Bridge, Spanning Niantic River between East Lyme & Waterford, Old Lyme, New London County, CT
Significance: The Niantic Bridge is a through girder bridge and
consists of a movable span and four approach spans on
stone masonry piers. The movable span is a
chain-driven Scherzer rolling lift bascule span with
overhead counterweight. It is significant as part of
the transportation link in the shoreline route of the
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and as an
individual engineering solution to the need to provide
dependable rail service while accommodating river navigation. [HAER-data]
(new window) The bridge is low to the water. It must have to operate rather frequently.
2012
Pi.1415926535, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons New Niantic River Bridge under construction in August 2012
Pi.1415926535, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons The 1907 and 2012 Niantic River bridges in 2012, viewed from the Route 156 bridge. The increased span and clearance of the new span is clear.
Per a comment, the new bridge is a trunnion bridge. But because the bridge is so low to the water, the trunnions are up high on towers.
The Q had only 2 NW1s and I shot exactly half of them. The shot taken August 1, 1963 is from Union Avenue Tower at the west end of the wye south of Chicago Union Station. She was #9200, built by EMC November 1937, and traded September 1965.
Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's share I knew that the B&OCT route went through this area. That would be the tracks near the background in this photo. The photo also shows the freight operation that was north of the mainline. The freight house that would have been on the right side of this photo has obviously already been removed along with many of the freight tracks. The red rectangle highlights Union Avenue Tower. Marty Bernard: The freight operations were CNW's as I remember. Dennis DeBruler: I wonder what C&NW called this yard.
Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's comment
Thanks. I'll fix my notes. I know C&NW was one of the owners of the St. Charles Air Line (25%). I wondered why CB&Q had redundant freight facilities here because the residential units between the tracks and 16th Street east of I-90 were occupied by a freight facility that included a gantry crane.
Marty Bernard: The Barriger picture looks like it's from the south edge of the Air Line looking west at the west home boards of Union Ave. Tower. The tower itself is just out of the photo to the left. In the 1960s the CB&Q yard was not there. A car washer was. Apartment buildings now occupy the space the yard was in. Mark Hinsdale lives in one.
Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's comment Dennis DeBruler: The 1915 Smoke Abatement Map confirms that the freight facility north of CB&Q's mainline was for C&NW. And C&NW tracks still go to the river. But the grain elevator those tracks served was gone by 1915. Halsted Street is along the left edge of this map.
Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's share I think the buildings in the background of the photo have also been removed. 41°51'36.8"N 87°38'43.1"W
Dennis DeBruler commented on Marty's share I believe this is the southwest corner of the tower's foundation. 41°51'36.7"N 87°38'42.9"W
Marty Bernard posted IC SW7 1211 taken from Union Avenue Tower, Chicago on August 1, 1963. The view is looking north and a little east. The bridge is the Dan Ryan Expressway. Union Avenue Tower was at the end of west legs of the wye south of Union Station. The SW7 is pulling a transfer on tracks leading to the St. Charles Airline. The closer tracks belonged to the CB&Q as did the tower. The tracks just beyond the switcher belonged to the CNW and the tracks further north belonged to the B&OCT. The B&OCT tracks went east to Grand Central Station. The CNW tracks dead ended there not going further east. The B&OCT and the CNW tracks no longer exist. Many of Mark Hinsdale's photos are taken the other side of the Dan Ryan Expressway near his apartment.
These two shots were taken of a CB&Q oiler on August 17, 1964 at Chadwick, IL. Nozzles aimed at both sides of each rail at the front of the car oiled the rails.
The SD9 mid-train was pictured in my previous post.
Kam Miller in Facebook wrote: "In the days when ice was added to refrigerator cars, the ice was contained in what was called a "bunker" at the ends of each car, under where the ice was put in at the roof hatches at the ends of the car. Salt was added to it since they found out that adding salt to the ice, besides melting it a bit, also made the ice colder. The result was called 'brine'. Either fans or vents pushed air over the ice to cool off the insides of the car as it traveled. Many big yards had icing stations inside the yard where the reefer trains were re-iced during the trips.
"The reefers also had drains at the ends which let the brine leak out, and of course, it leaked onto the rails and trucks. Naturally, maintenance of reefers included looking at the trucks to see that the salt brine didn't mess them up too bad, either."
[There were a lot of comments on this post. I discuss their content below.]
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Some of the comments called it a weed sprayer. Marty posted the following to show what a CB&Q sprayer looked like back in the day.
I zoom in on the photo of the oil sprayer so that you can see that the nozzles are aimed at the sides of the rail and avoid the railhead.
Digitally Zoomed
The oil would help keep the brine from touching the rails and causing rust. One comment also mentioned that the brine is hard on the wood ties.
Scott Dolanc: CB&Q and other railroads would spray used engine oil on the joint bars and bolts that held the rails together to protect them from the brine Marty talks about. If a rail broke or some other maintenance needed done, the bolts and joint bars wouldn't be completely rusted together and would be easier to get apart to work on the track structure. Very important on busy mainlines.
Ross Posch: Remember the use of oil on the bolted joints to avoid Sun Kinks.
Bob Parkin: CB&Q Oiler 211581 at Chadwick, IL on August 17, 1964. Oil was sprayed on the rails to reduce the corrosion caused by the salt brine leaking from the ice-cooled refrigerated cars.
Richard Ferzely: The only time I saw that done was summer of 1983. I was working out of Sterling CO. We ran on the UP from Sterling about 25 miles and got back on the BN close to Brush CO. UP section men with hand sprayers walked and oiled every set of angle bars. It was short heavy jointed rail at the time so it took almost all summer to do the 25 miles.
Roger Stabler: In the days of jointed rail, the joints were oiled to help with expansion and contraction.
Michael Armstrong: Rail joints were lubricated to prevent what is known as a “frozen joint”. Rail expands and contracts and it is desired to allow the joint components to move (although controlled movement is minimal) to avoid joint pull-aparts in cold temperatures and kinked rail in hot temperatures.
Tony Verrecchio: Marty Bernard You know when we had stick rail they walked it every day.
Marty Bernard: Tony Verrecchio I remember.
Rob Gardnerv[In response to a comment by Marty that he did not know the rail slid in the joint.]: Marty Bernard the key is alternating round and Oval shaped holes in the joint bars coupled with a built in gapping ability in the spacing of the holes and the fact that the bolts are always smaller than the holes drilled in the rail that they pass through. Jointed rail has to be able to expand and expand with the ambient air Temps. When you're laying rail in the heat of summer you leave little if any Gao when you assemble each joint. Likewise, if you're laying rail in the dead of winter you leave as much of a gap as possible to give the rail room to expand in each adjacent joint with pushing the adjacent rails. Long trains rolling down the track also increase the effective temperature of the rail as the train passes. Hence, on hot summer days, most railroads run heat patrols once the temperature hits 100F to look for the telltale signs of unstable rail and they will post temporary speed restrictions to minimize the chance for track to buckle under a moving train.
Mal Stephens: Marty Bernard even though the joints are plated and bolted,, there is enough tension in the rails from the temperature change for the rails to slide away in the cold until the pressure is onto the bolts,, as the bolt holes are a bigger than the bolts,, and for the rails to expand and close again when the rail get hot,, If the rails corrode enough with the salt reaction this will not happen.
Jeffrey Varney: I also remember that we used to have a crossing gate problem at the old Lake Cook Road crossing at Deerfield. During the winter, the snowplows would dump a lot of salt into and over the road crossing during a snowstorm. When the salt melted the snow, all of the water would run down into the crossing. Soon, the salt water concentration was so high that the crossing gates would activate and stop traffic. I don't remember how many times the maintainer went and checked the crossing and advised the gates were working properly and the salt water in the crossing was to blame. After many times, I told the police to send a fire truck over and flush out the crossing with the firehose. After the first time, when the gates cleared after the crossing was washed clear of the salt water, we did not receive that many calls anymore for gate problems. I would guess that the police would dispatch a fire truck to the scene and if the gates did not clear after the crossing was washed out, then they would call the railroad.
Sidney Mcwhorter: The last oiler train I remember was back in 1971. The man in charge turned in over time around the clock. The road master at the time said he was not going to pay it. The operator told him they had been and he was also.
Bob Johnston: My family was in the produce brokerage business in Paducah for almost 60 years. We brought in thousands of those reefers with fruits & vegetables from all the producing sections. In the winter from the north they put charcoal & later alcohol heaters in the bunkers to prevent freezing. Later it changed to large mechanical reefer with incentive rates. Most of them came in on the “Q”/BN as Paducah (which many people didn’t know) was the southern terminal of the Burlington. The BNSF still comes in here.
Scott Thomas: Well, I can tell you this. The rails were indeed sprayed with an oil, just not like you are thinking. The oil being sprayed on the rails was more like a tar. It served several purpose's. One was it quieted down the noise the trains made passing over the track. For freight no one cared, but it made a big difference in passenger cars. Also, it reduced vibrations in the rail and helped extend tie life. The only reason I know this is because the old Milwaukee Road track out of council bluffs, a lot of that rail still has some of the coating stuck on it. Look at the photos and zoom in on the spray car. You can clearly see the gobs of tar on the car, trucks, etc. That's no weed sprayer. If it were, where are the booms?
Dennis DeBruler: If you click the "post" link in the top line, you will see several comments explaining that this was done for brine protection. The railroads were particularly concerned about the rail joints being frozen with rust. Rust made it difficult to remove the bolts if a 39' "stick" of rail needed to be replaced. More significantly, it did not allow the joint to slide when the rail expanded and contracted. This was back before rail was strong enough to handle contraction and before anchors were invented to help avoid kinks when the rail expanded.
It occurred to me that many Millenniums might not even know what jointed rail is. I live in western Chciagoland and the closest jointed mainline that I have seen is the former Rock Island route in Ottawa, IL, that is now owned by CSX. When BNSF replaces the track in crossings or replaces turnouts in their mainline, they temporarily connect the new rails to the existing rails with joint bars. So I've been able to get some closeups of joints. (There is so much ballast on top of the ties in this photo because they have done just a first pass of surfacing (tamping) the tracks.) The gaps are larger than what was used in jointed rails because these joints will be welded during the night. But jointed rail did have gaps to leave room for expansion in the Summer without kinks. And the joints allowed contraction in the Winter without breaking the rails.
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Jointed rail was a maintenance nightmare. But before continuous welded rail (CWR) could be used, the tensile strength of steel had to be increased to withstand the internal forces induced by contraction and rail anchors had to be developed to hold the rail from kinking when it expanded. Also, special trains had to be developed to carry quarter-mile long segments of rail. So rail joints that were frozen with rust would give you the disadvantages of CWR without the mitigating factors of increased strength and better anchors.
Pete got tired of all of the comments claiming it was spraying weeds. (And then just two comments after this one was another person claiming the train was doing weed control.)
J Pete Hedgpeth: I wonder from all the "palavering" on here about this subject that if most of you guys really understand how corrosive that salt brine is that used to run out of the drains on those "pre mechanical refrigeration" reefers with ice bunkers on each end. It does, as some have pointed out, take a certain "measure" of salt added to the ice at re icing points. This salt was added in the amounts specified by the "icing instructions" which accompanied the waybill The water, with a high salt concentration was collected at the bottom of the bunder and ran out trough a tube leading outside and pointed away from the car. This highly corrosive mixture poured out sometimes in fairly high volumes. If you have ever seen a "reefer train" heading around an elevated curve you will see a fog consisting of "flying salt water" drifting out. think of the thousand and thousand and thousands of salt water pouring on steel and you have a vile, corrosive soup collecting on everything metal on or about the RO"W. This stuff did it's destruction on anything metal..ie rail, joints, bridge members etc. This oiling was not done just to "get rid of excess oil"...it was done to preserve and reduce the corrosion of anything metal along the row. In my very early days in the RI training program I spent a couple of days in very cold December weather along with the roadmaster on the "Government Bridge across the Mississippi at Rock Island-Davenport appling a goop oiling substance on the metal struts, ties and other supporting members of the bridge. This to reduce the corrosiong at this critical point on the RI. Think about it...Every shipment from CAlifonia (FFV) Fresh Fruit and Vetgetable and Omaha ( hanging meat) passed over this bridge and dumped this vile mixture on the bridge.
Because the railroads and their suppliers used PTC technology to implement old-fashioned fixed block signaling rather than newer methods that were enabled by PTC technology such as moving block signaling, some non-welded joints are permanent to make insulated joints. I put red rectangles around the three insulated joints that are just west of Fairfield Ave. in Downers Grove, IL. The close joint looks like it used four bolts instead of eight but that is because they alternate the direction in which the bolts are inserted. The holes along the left side of the photo are where joints were made between the crossing track on the left and the existing track. Since this is a few days after the track was replaced, the joints have been welded and the bolts and bars are removed.
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I used to ride the Pennsy from Fort Wayne to Chicago in the late 1960s so I experienced the clickety-clack of the wheels on the joints. While I was trackside, a coal train came rolling through on some temporary joints. At 1:28 I zeroed in on the source of the clickety-clack,. Imagine what this train would sound like if that noise was happening every 39' for the entire length of the train! [DeBruler]
This was the caboose in the above oiler train.
safe_image for photo A comment on a post provided this link with the information "a regular 30' NE-1 Waycar." This comment was in reply to an observation that a waycar looked like a drover caboose because of all of the windows.
Jess Raen posted two photos with the comment: "The Jessica Brent heading through Old River Lock this morning."
[It is approaching the Mississippi River or east side. Note that Jessica Brent has a retractable pilothouse.]
Dennis DeBruler: I read that the lock was supposed to close May 13, 2021, because of high water. I wonder when it opened again. [nola, USACE closes the lock at 62.5' to remove electrical equipment and to start sandbagging.]
The Mississippi doesn't seem to be that much higher than the Atchafalaya River in this photo. To maintain a ratio of flow to the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers, a lift of 4' to 19' is maintained. [OldRiverControlBrochure, p6]
For a nice description of this evolution of the rivers, search for "parallel courses" in landingaday. That description includes how to pronounce the new river created in the 15th Century: "ah chaf fa LIE ya"
I have not figured out how barge traffic is split between this Atchafalaya waterway and the Port Allen Lock Waterway. Does the bulk of the traffic on the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway consist of petrochemicals headed to the Baton Rouge part of the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya handles the 15 tows a day that is going further up the river? I scanned both waterways with a satellite map. The only tow I saw on the Atchafalaya waterway was actually on the Red River. I saw about a dozen on the Port Allen Lock Waterway if I include those that can lock through to the Little Tensas Bayou.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District posted three photos with the comment: "Recently, the Rock Island District's Quad Cities heavy-lift crane and it's crew we working down in the US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District to replace two miter gates at the Old River Lock. The new gates were stored in a horizontal position, so the crew had to stand the gates up to install them and lay the old gates down to be stored. While this sounds like a pretty simple task, nothing is simple when you are dealing with miter gates of that magnitude."
Lance McCall: I remember the first job with the new quad cities... amazing machinery it lifted the gates at Leland Bowman locks no problem.
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Layne Logue commented on USACE's post Old River Lock is supposed to be opened on Nov. 20.
Fort Loudoun Lock posted two photos with the comment: "Some pics from the recently dewatered 'Old River Lock"'operated & maintained by the New Orleans District Corps of Engineers near Lettsworth, LA. The Old River Lock is located 11 river miles downstream of the Old River Auxiliary Structure at the location where the Mississippi & Atchafalaya Rivers were once connected. Amazingly, this lock was completed in 1963 at a cost of just $15M! The concrete finished lock chamber floor makes it safe & convenient for equipment to be operated as can be seen in these pics. Not every lock has a finished flat surface like this one for ease of operations during major maintenance."
John Conway: Does Ft Loudoun lock have a concrete floor or is it just old river bottom?
Fort Loudoun Lock: John Conway We're lucky on the TN River. The natural bedrock at most locks serves as a sufficient surface for a lock chamber floor without having to pour concrete. Additionally, Watts Bar & Fort Loudoun both are fairly clean on the bottom when we pump them out. There isn't a lot of mud, silt, or other debris built up such as is seen on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Illinois River lock chamber floors.
Nicholas Minorsky posted Steam locomotive (on the right of the photo) used to transport quarry stone to Kensico Dam, NY construction site. The stone was used for the downstream face of this reservoir dam.
Via TheHarlemLine This 1917 dam replaced the original dam built in 1885. Now the 92-mile Catskill Aqueduct feeds water into the reservoir of this dam. "The main building material used in the dam is concrete mixed with large stones, called Cyclopean concrete. The dam face is made of large granite stones from a quarry in nearby Cranberry Lake."
Most dams have at least a small river downstream. Looking at a satellite image, this one has a park instead of a river! The dam is over 300' tall and more than 1800' long. The park contains 1400 acres. [OnlyInYourState] Although the developed part is 98 acres and is called the Kensico Dam Plaza. [TheHarlemLine] I guess NYC drinks the entire contents of the river that used to be here. The reservoir is fed mainly by an aqueduct rather than a watershed and that explains why they don't need a spillway to a downstream river.
TheHarlamLine, this page has three more photos of this memorial and many more photos of the park. "In addition to the dam, the grounds also contains a September 11th Memorial, called The Rising, designed by architect Frederic Schwartz. The memorial lists the names of all one hundred and eleven Westchester County residents that died in the attacks."
Bridges Now and Then posted "Out of the Archives: In 1911, construction of the Rye Outlet Bridge in Westchester County, NY was underway. The 5-arch span reinforced bridge was built to carry the highway over the Kensico Reservoir. April 11, 1911." (NYC Water)
