A Belt Railway of Chicago empty coke bucket pulls from a stop at 49th Street on the "49 Line", which is the right-of-way occupied by the GTW Elsdon Subdivision and the IHB Stockyards Branch, stretching from what was once Elsdon Yard east to the C&WI/PRR corridor. Long ago, this routing allowed GTW passenger liners to reach downtown Chicago's Dearborn St Station, via the 21st St interlocker.
Two ALCO C424's in the sharp BRC two-tone grey and yellow participate in typical 251 behaviour, belching thick smoke nearly fourty
feet into the air, in a conducive effort to get 4600 feet of 100ton hoppers in motion.
Seen from ground level, the hoghead on BRC nos.603, 605 have the throttle notched halfway out, as the train makes its way up and over
the old Pennsy Panhandle and B&O mains at 49th St crossing. The NYC terminal subsidiary Chicago River & Indiana, later known as
the "CJ", begins to parallel the other two mainlines at this location, snaking it's way north through the west side of town until it reaches
C&NW's Wood St/Global 1 at Western Ave. The bucket will utilize all three of these mainlines to reach the Santa Fe yard at McCook Jct.
In 1999, organizations and corporations the world over were wringing their hands over the Y2K scare, fearing that computer servers and worldwide networks would succumb to failure come the arrival of the new century, as it was unknown if the literal transition from 2359hrs on December 31st 1999 to 0001hrs January 1st 2000 would trigger global pandemonium as computers would shut down. As we all know today, this luckily did not occur and the numbers flipped without any issue, ushering in a new decade of human advancement.
These photographs are now public domain, obtained via the company's Media and Communications team from a managerial email thread, discussing standards of operations across all operating divisions of the system in preparation for Y2K.
In lieu of nationwide concern over the transition into the 21st century, company paper, including systems, finance, and photographic records were of the upmost importance to keep and preserve in the case of world computers defaulting and melting down. Between April 9th 1999 and February 2nd 2000, both CLW and LWP systems synchronized their operational and organizational standards to prepare for the worst, lest the worlds global networks implode.
While this may seem mundane from a glance, it is an interesting look into a railroad reconciling and planning to keep their head on straight in the face of worldwide technological panic, and I thought I would share what could be considered an almost two decade old CLW time capsule.
In a all over-the-page email, CLW VP of operations Tom Vontry inquired to Chicago Division Terminal Manager R. Farnes, Calumet Yardmaster Ken Pochoki,
Javelin team members, and other relevant bodies a status update and further information request on terminal properties within the Chicago city limits.
Everything posted here was selectively released for public domain.
Always wanted to try this for a long time, got bored this week and gave it a go, Merge was easy delete 1 board from Detroit Connection R.R map and merge, Have retextured it to match the other part, just something for a little fun for myself, still not perfect and doupt I could get permission to release it anyway.
At 2 PM on July 16, 2018, we see the UP ZKCBR-16 beginning its assault on Sherman Hill, with the last two SP-painted AC4400CWs in service on point. (note, these are not the actual last SP units in service, but for the purposes of the session they are)