Who's yard is it

[tatm07]

While waiting to pick someone up at Midway last week, we went south on 50 about 3 miles over a viaduct and turned inot a Walmart store.  We were wondering what railyard i next store. There wer a few CSX motors and a Chicago Beltway

[snagletooth]

That would be the east end of Belt Railway of Chicago's main yard in Bedford Park.

[n012944]

Just to add: its know as Clearing yard. 

 

Bert

[tatm07]

Thanks for the info. this might sound stupid but does the Beltway act as a switch line  betweent the major railroads?

[snagletooth]

Yep, it's owned by pretty much all railroads through mergers. It's consider a terminal line, even though it's made it to class I standards before. Indiana Harbor Belt being the other railroad in town. There's an intermodal yard on the west end owned by CSX called IMX off of Harlem. The west end is rather accesible for photos, with most trains coming and going from that end. Most railroads now use BRC to make up their trains, closing their own for intermodal and local switching facilities.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

BRC is jointly owned by six Class I's (BNSF, CN, CP, CSX, NS, UP) ands acts as a joint terminal facility and interchange for them.  Since it and IHB are both within the Chicago Switching Limits, they don't have to be shown on routing instructions and must sell their services to their owning and connecting roads.

[Lord Atmo]

what's BRC?

[eolafan]

what's BRC?

BRC stands for BELT RAILWAY OF CHICAGO and IHB is INDIANA HAROR BELT which are the two "inner belt" roads that provide interchange between the various class I roads in and around Chicago.  The EJ&E (Elgin, Joliet and Eastern) is the "outer belt" road that also provides interchange and is seen in recent years as a way for the class I road (in particular BNSF and UP) to get their trains around Chicago without spending lots of time going through the city itself.

  

[CShaveRR]

Belt Railway of Chicago.

Paul, do you know the percentages owned by each of the railroads?  Unless things have changed, they're based on shares owned by their predecessors, which owned one share apaiece.  I suspect that CSX and NS are by far the owners of the biggest percentages.  And, in spite of the attitude around the UP, it owns a relatively small percentage, based on (I suspect) half of the C&EI ownership.  I don't know how CP would have gotten in.

[n012944]

Belt Railway of Chicago.

Paul, do you know the percentages owned by each of the railroads?  Unless things have changed, they're based on shares owned by their predecessors, which owned one share apaiece.  I suspect that CSX and NS are by far the owners of the biggest percentages.  And, in spite of the attitude around the UP, it owns a relatively small percentage, based on (I suspect) half of the C&EI ownership.  I don't know how CP would have gotten in.

Did the Soo or MILW own any of the Belt?

Bert

[snagletooth]

Belt Railway of Chicago.

Paul, do you know the percentages owned by each of the railroads?  Unless things have changed, they're based on shares owned by their predecessors, which owned one share apaiece.  I suspect that CSX and NS are by far the owners of the biggest percentages.  And, in spite of the attitude around the UP, it owns a relatively small percentage, based on (I suspect) half of the C&EI ownership.  I don't know how CP would have gotten in.

Did the Soo or MILW own any of the Belt?

Bert

IIRC, Soo was an original half owner of IHB with NYC, so CP didn't get in with SOO. But I didn't think MLWK owned any of BRC at all, preffering direct interchange. But it must be MLWK.

[CShaveRR]

I just checked--Soo was an original owner of the Belt, so that explains CP.  CN is in based on original owners GTW and IC, UP by its half share of C&EI, BNSF is based on CB&Q and ATSF, CSX by C&O, PM, Monon, and half of C&EI, plus half of the Conrail split (PRR, Erie), and NS has the other half of the Conrail split plus the Wabash's original share.  There were 13 original owners; I can't imagine what might have happened to the share of #13, the Rock Island.

Snag, I think NYC was a majority owner of IHB (51% or something like that), with the other nearly-half originally split between C&NW and MILW.  C&NW apparently sold its portion to MILW.  The majority ownership is now split between CSX and NS, but I'm not sure how this affects operations on the eastern end of the system.

[snagletooth]

I just checked--Soo was an original owner of the Belt, so that explains CP.  CN is in based on original owners GTW and IC, UP by its half share of C&EI, BNSF is based on CB&Q and ATSF, CSX by C&O, PM, Monon, and half of C&EI, plus half of the Conrail split (PRR, Erie), and NS has the other half of the Conrail split plus the Wabash's original share.  There were 13 original owners; I can't imagine what might have happened to the share of #13, the Rock Island.

Snag, I think NYC was a majority owner of IHB (51% or something like that), with the other nearly-half originally split between C&NW and MILW.  C&NW apparently sold its portion to MILW.  The majority ownership is now split between CSX and NS, but I'm not sure how this affects operations on the eastern end of the system.

Thx CShaver, for the clear up. I knew NYC was in IHB. I thought MLWK was in BRC and SOO was in IHB. But now that I think about it MLWK used IHB to get to it's Indiana line after it abandoned it's line through Dekalb, Aurora, and Joliet (Geez, how long ago was THAT, before my time, but Aurora ,kinda, still remembers).   You really did your homework on all those owners. 13th. might have been CGW, possibly. Might explain why they sold their IHB to MLWK.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

When Jerry Pinkepank wrote his two-part series on BRC in 1966 or 1967 for TRAINS titled "Serving 12 Masters", the owners were: ATSF, CB&Q, C&O (by way of PM), C&EI, EL, GTW, IC, MON, N&W (by way of WAB),PRR, RI, and SOO.  L&N became the 13th owner when it purchased the Evansville line of C&EI.  I believe that it was a full share.  Until 1962, when the line was finally purchased, BRC leased its railroad from the Chicago & Western Indiana RR.

[tree68]

It occurs to me that if they had used tie-dyed plastic ties, we would have had our answer...

[CShaveRR]

Thanks, Paul, I almost had it right!

Your list, and assessment of how L&N got there, makes sense--according to my 1979 Moody's manual, L&N (CEI, MON) and Conrail (PRR, EL) each owned 2/13 of BRC.  It showed all of those other railroads as owning 1/11, but that doesn't add up--should be 1/13.  So UP apparently has a full share as well.

It's been forever since I've seen BRC units come to Proviso (that used to be a line on which you could count on seeing the Alco C424s).  Now cars from BRC are handled by UP power on YCHPR. 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

BRC's roster isn't as diverse as it once was (the C424's and cow-calf sets are long gone) but it's still an interesting operation with SD40/slug sets as hump pushers and GP38-2's and SW1500/MP15's working pulldown jobs.  Seeing BRC power on a transfer has become rare, the only transfer of which I'm aware that uses BRC power is a job to Glenn Yard, usually using BRC 560 or 561, the only SD40's not wired for slugs.

[t.winx]

I think the Intermodal yard on the west end is called Bedford Park. IMX used to be operated by UP but does anybody know if it is still in use? Check out this address on Google Maps: 3000 South Damen Street Chicago, Illinois

This is the address on the UP site and the site definetely looks to be an old intermodal terminal (you can see the arrival gates) but dead now. Can anybody help me out? Very sad looking.

Thanks,

Tyler

[n012944]

I think that is the ex SP yard.

 

Bert

 

[snagletooth]

I think that is the ex SP yard.

 

Bert

 

Yes it was. Originaly IC, then CMW (OOPS, CMW didn't actually own IC track in Chicago). I think SP leased it from IC.

[CShaveRR]

UP no longer uses IMX, but it does run trains into CSX's Bedford Park facility.

[RABEL]

3000 Damen was an IC then UP Intermodal yard. It no longer exists today,tracks removed.