BRC served industries north of Clearing Yard.

There is so little carload traffic left that I wanted to capture this information of the industries that are still served by BRC on their mainline along Cicero Ave that went north from the east end of Clearing Yard. Satellite images are embedded throughout this posting.

We begin with this local that Nick describes.

Nick Hart posted

This BRC local out of Clearing Yard switches industries around the Chicago/Cicero border. It operates three days a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) and is usually a late morning departure out of Clearing. It's two main customers that I know of are Charter Steel in Chicago, along with Best Foods, located less than a mile north of where this photo was taken. There's a few other industries that I don't know of. Anyone by chance know the names?

On this sunny afternoon, the train is headed back south to Clearing after switching Best Foods. Crossing the Cal Sag Channel and the BNSF Chillicothe Subdivision (former ATSF) at the location known as LeMoyne, the local has a BRC MP15AC in charge.

Chicago, IL
April 19th, 2018
Craig Cloud How often is the interchange track used?
Nick Hart Craig Cloud Not sure how often it's used, but I believe NS runs a few stacks to Landers Yard, utilizing that connection track.
Zaky Joseph That interchange track connects the BNSF (Santa Fe) junction yard with the BRC. They run stack train transfers to Norfolk Southerns Landers yard, as well as light power and transfer moves from BNSFs Corwith Yard to BNSFs Cicero yard, via the BRC.
Dennis DeBruler Zaky Joseph I'm glad to hear that at least some container traffic is interchanged using steel wheels instead of rubber wheels. (For my reference: message 01/23/09 18:42 in https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1854347)
Dennis DeBruler Looking at the connectors at the former Santa Fe and CB&Q routes, it looks like the transfers would have to be a shoving move along the BRC. That would explain why they are building the Panhandle Project: https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../create-wa4...
Zaky Joseph This job also switches home products, south of the CN diamonds at Lemoyne (I55 North of Cicero Ave). And north of Archer ave
Taylor Veldman This job also serves Unilever off of 31st
Ean Kahn-Treras Different name, but same spot as Unilever. 31st St indeed.

There is one other place just south of 47th Street that they serve. You can see 3 or 4 bay hoppers in the satellite view.
Ean Kahn-Treras It amazes me that the Brc couldnt wiggle away any of the former CRI trackage in the lemoyne industrial park before it was all left for dead. Lots of industrial warehouse space back in there now.
[Actually, the crossing is Nerska that was controlled by BRC's Lemoyne tower. Note the bridge in the background.]

4401 W Roosevelt

Charter Steel Trading started as a brokerage house in 1974. It expanded into warehouse and slitting slitting services in this facility at 4401 W Roosevelt Rd in Chicago.  We can tell by the curved tree line in the lower-left corner that some buildings in this area had rail service.

1600 S. Kostner

In 2011, they expanded into cut-to-length services with a second facility. We can see that this facility receives coils of steel in covered coil cars. If we follow this spur to the west, we see it branches from the middle of the remnants of BRC's 12th (22nd) Street Yard. This yard used to support a lot of industries off its 16th Street Branch.

Street View

They have changed their track layout since the most recent satellite image to use the south part of the building. It appears that Dow Chemical is using their property as a parking lot for trailers as well as cars.

Satellite

Nick Hart posted

BRC MP15DC 150 makes a pick-up at Charter Steel, before heading south to Best Foods and Home Products. This is the Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday local out of Clearing Yard. Most of the time, it runs with Geeps, so it was nice to see it operating with a switcher on this sunny afternoon.

*Note* Taken on private property, with permission obtained from Charter Steel staff.

Chicago, IL
April 24th, 2018

Zaky Joseph posted
BRC #237 switching at Charter Steel in Chicago with a little bit of street running. 11/21/18.
Zaky Joseph John DeWit Woodlock II it should run Tues, Thurs, and Sat, as long as there are steel cars to be picked up or dropped off there.

Satellite

William L. Brushaber One correction, Best Foods at 2816 s.Kilbourn is in Chicago and this 77yr old was 1st introduced to railfaning in the'40's by my grandfather when the BRC still had steam. And my Suntimes paper route in 1955 was 28th St. ,Kilbourn and Kenneth st.. I also got to watch DiamondT trucks on the test track north of 28th St. where there is a Highschool now. The BRC is the border between Cicero and Chicago .

Satellite

I don't know why, but Google offered two different images for the same URL. I'm saving both of them because they captured two different staging and spotting patterns.

By the diagonal (lower-left corner) and curved side (upper-middle) of buildings, you can see that a spur used to run all the way through the property to Kilburn Ave.

Satellite

Later, when I was looking for an oil company, I found a satellite image that not only has a track past the curved building, there are two cars spotted at the curve. And Google labeled it Unilever Best Foods. I also are a lot more tanks on the property.

Satellite

I'm back to the newer image, and a lot of the tanks have been removed. But they have built some new tanks down by an auxiliary building. I'm guessing the change is because they switched some receivables from rail to truck.

Satellite

Satellite

This job also serves Homz Products. Judging from the silos and covered hoppers, I'm guessing they receive plastic pellets. Browsing some of their products (e.g. seasonal), many of them are made with plastic.


Taylor Veldman This job also serves Unilever off of 31st.
Dennis DeBruler Is it BWAY now? It looks like their spur has been paved over. https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4...

Satellite

Ean Kahn-Treras It amazes me that the Brc couldnt wiggle away any of the former CRI trackage in the lemoyne industrial park before it was all left for dead. Lots of industrial warehouse space back in there now.
Dennis DeBruler Indeed, it is just east of their Lemoyne Yard. https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../chicago-and...




The petroleum company is served by a different job.

Satellite

By "north", I meant along the mainline that goes north to the former Milwaukee route. But another interpretation of north would be all of the rail-served industries that were along the north side of Clearing Yard.

Alliance Steel

Unfortunately, BRC is loosing another industry --- Alliance Steel.

Lucas Irons shared an InsideIndianaBusiness link.

David Jordan The Belt Railway of Chicago's 8002 Tariff lists Alliance Steel at 6499 W. 66TH Place in Bedford Park, which is close to the 65th Street address listed elsewhere. 
http://www2.beltrailway.com/customers/8002.pdf

Alliance Steel is moving to Gary, IN.

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