[wacampbell]

I like switching and am interested in small urban routes. This sounds like an excellent project.

[Noisemaker]

That's interesting stuff Dave. Didn't know Chicago ever even did that. Thought it all happened here in Canada when we did Expo '67, and all the controversy of building an island in the St. Lawrence away from Montreal for it.

I'm with Wayne. I'd like to see a good small, but good and dense switching route as well. And what a better place than Chicago for it. I'm looking forward to it as well. :derisive:

[eric from trainsim]

Interesting, Dave. The present version of my CNW Harvard will go right past your route, and would make for an interesting merge at some point... I've always planned to add the downtown track by the Trib plant and under the Sun Times building out to Navy Pier, but hadn't enough information to try and tackle Goose. I'm also currently working on scenery objects for that stretch of track (Downtown to Norwood Park), and would be happy to share anything within your modeling era.

If you are doing the steam era, include the diamonds at CY. If you're going for an 80's or later, the diamonds were removed, and the feed comes out of the CNW's North Ave yard. You can still see the MILW approach underneath the Kennedy Expwy, but there's no signs left of the diamonds unless you consider the CY tower, which is still manned and controls most of the former CNW out to Deval if I recall, but certainly North Ave and the current lead heading east.

[Genma Saotome]

I don't have much use for modern railroading and so the routes I like most are set up for the early 50's -- or earlier.

For Goose Island, the maps I have are from 1951. I could have used maps from 1935 (or earlier) but there were some interesting additions to the industrial scene that occurred in the intervening years so I am using the later maps. By setting a stake down not later than '51 I can also "properly" include the Chicago Surface Lines track on a couple of streets, N. Halsted in particular. If I push the time line back a tad to '47 I can include the CSL on Division too and maybe a couple of other streets.

I plan on running the MILW track a half mile or so west of the CNW main and no further. I need something to work like staging on a model railroad... a place for turns to originate and return to as I don't want to do 5+ miles of housing to get out to Galewood yard. It does present a problem visually tho... how does one exclude 2-3km of what;s visible beyond the track when the world is real flat? And of course having crossed the river to the westside leaves me with the issue of how much of that to model? It's all right there in plain sight.

On the south end, the MILW crossed the river again between Michigan and Kinzie (it's the photo titled Water Towers in the Jumbo Images forum) and then weaved it's way south for a few blocks to the big train shed. At one time there was suburban passenger traffic from Evanston but I cannot find anything that tells me when it ceased. It would be nice if there was something going on in the period I have in mind.


I'm using Scalerail. What's the Harvard sub using?

[RailfanML]

Dave, this sounds like a very interesting project! Chicago and switching...count me in! I agree with everyone else, a nice, dense yet small switching route would be wonderful to play around with. I can already see the MILW FM switchers grinding around kicking cars. Will be following this project closely!

[eric from trainsim]

Genma Saotome, on 13 August 2012 - 09:30 PM, said:

At one time there was suburban passenger traffic from Evanston but I cannot find anything that tells me when it ceased. It would be nice if there was something going on in the period I have in mind.


I'm using Scalerail. What's the Harvard sub using?

Harvard is X-Tracks for now, but I'm considering Scalerail after having just converted another route. My only real concern is how to deal with the dozen or so double-slips at the throat of Olgilvie.

Here's what was posted on the Kingsbury track on IlliniRail some months back:

Quote

The Kingsbury and Lakewood lines were remnants of the C&E (Chicago &
Evanston subdivision). C&E had a swing bridge about where the East Bank Club
is, crossing the north branch of the Chicago River on an acute angle above
Kinzie Street. Kinzie Street was crossed at grade and the tracks were in
Canal Street. It would have had diamonds with C&NW, at least since Wells
Street Station. There were, what, five small terminals prior to Wells Street
serving the three lines that became C&NW, not all of which were shared, west
of the north branch, and I'm confused about what year and what lines each
one served. C&E joined the north approach to the Pennsy depot on its grade
crossing of Canal Street.

The Milwaukee Road (then the Saint Paul centered on Milwaukee) came to
Chicago, its three divisions were separate projects but built partly on
spec, assuming that they'd be acquired by the next route into Chicago, Saint
Paul being the logical target. Today's Elgin sub built what became the
Bloomingdale line, crossed the north branch of the Chicago River, turned
south and terminated near Chicago Avenue. They wanted to serve potential
industrial sites along the east bank of the river. Almost immediately, this
line shared the route into Chicago with what's now the route from
the north, C&M (Chicago & Milwaukee subdivision). Both the route from north
and west opened about the same time.

There were franchises kicking around for what would become the C&E and the
route was cheaply built. It was a strange franchise that assumed a route
would be built to serve the Chain O'Lakes area from a route very close to
the lakefront. Saint Paul didn't require a second route from the north, but
they were desperate to prevent Wisconsin Central from buying it as its
Chicago approach. WC would have built an east-west segment near Glenview.

Saint Paul would of course built the route to Libertyville heading toward
the east shore of Butler Lake although it terminated just east of Milwaukee
Avenue, an alignment that never made sense to me. The Janesville route
would be built throught the Chain O'Lakes area, branching off the
Libertyville branch just west of the Des Plaines River. Did this use the
acquired franchise? I wonder.

The C&E was built north from what would become C&E Junction, a point on
Kinsbury south of Courtland, and then head north (partly in Lakewood) to
Evanston north of Central.

Of the three routes, C&E actually had more business than the other two,
since it served a settled area.

When the rapid transit was built, it terminated in Uptown at Wilson, built
adjacent to C&E for its last 3/4 mile so passenger could transfer to C&E
steam trains to travel farther north. There was some joint ticketing.

As we know, the predecessor of CNS&M got to Wilmette and acquired trackage
rights to downtown Evanston and built a small terminal east of C&E at Church
Street. This is why Benson Street is especially wide. The rapid transit
acquired trackage rights Wilson to Evanston and later extended into
Wilmette. The interurban acquired trackage right's via the rapid transit's
trackage rights.

So prior to elevation, a two-track railroad was shared by steam passenger
and freight, rapid transit, and interurban.

C&E was elevated from Montrose, north. Post elevation, its passenger service
was truncated in Uptown, then ended. Its freight above Uptown was delivered
by rapid transit haulage, an arrangement ended in 1973. CTA bought the
elevated portion of C&E in 1955.

I don't know when the swing bridge was removed. The route has experienced a
series of cutbacks. I don't even know who its remaining customers are.

[captain_bazza]

What sort of loco roster would be required? Also river traffic?

Cheers Bazza

[Noisemaker]

For a great selection of boats and/or to analyze how to incorporate them onto your route, I suggest checking out the BCER route. http://hawkdawg.com/MSTS/rts/bcer.htm Think it's got like 10 or more big boats suitable for great lakes traffic, and 2 or 3 of them act as AI simultaneously around New Westminster during a act. Quebec & Charlevoix route also has some great freighter boats, but sadly all are static. And animated or not, feel free to use my Music For Railroads - Water over at 'that other place'. It has good sound sources of distant boat horns and water sounds. Also, my Industrial sounds may make a good fit in and around your buildings.

Toot toot! My own horn that is :scarerun:

[Genma Saotome]

AFAIK, for the MILW in the early 50's, a trio of Alco S-2's plus a FM H-10-44 for all of the switching, and perhaps older 2-8-2 or 2-8-0 doing a turn from Galewood yard, maybe some work around the island too. Backdate it to WWII and one could replace two of the diesels w/ a pair of 2-8-0's. The steamers retained in Chicago were old models acquired when the MILW purchased a regional line in Indiana -- coal mines and limestone. I don't recall the name but I'm pretty sure the initials were CSTE or CSTH. I've yet to find any photos.

Should I ever get around to including the CNW tracks across the river to the west, well, there's some serious railroading going on over there -- an 8 track mainline, the southern terminal of the CNW Wisconsin Division, commuter trains into downtown Chicago. A whole lot of stuff and when a child I used to play on the CNW ROW I don't know enough about its habits to say boo about it's locomotives.

As for the river traffic, I've seen plenty of photos that show barges of one sort or another and there are several large coal yards at river edge so its certainly plausible that one or more had coal delivered that way (water carriers always being waaay less expensive than rail). The Morton Salt plant appears to have used barges too and it's possible the A.M. Castle steel fabrication & warehouse facilities shipped and received really big beams by barge.

The river around the island is consistently 200 feet wide... no idea how deep but I'd guess not very.

[captain_bazza]

M&U #5, with her slopeback tender would be suitable as a switcher.

Cheers Bazza