1.1 Gigawatt Coal Creek Station near Underwood, ND

(Satellite)

I was going to just post this photo as another tandem crane lift. But when I discovered that Coal Creek Station is a mine-mouth plant using lignite, uses a 436 mile DC transmission line to Minnesota, and uses the steam to make ethanol and corn oil; I decided it was worth further research.

Branden Kuck posted
2250s setting conveyer section. Lighting came out good so figured I would share. Local #49
Gerald Duysen Is this at Coal Creek Station?
Branden Kuck Gerald Duysen yes sir it is

lignite.com

The cranes above are building a conveyor that takes the coal from the Falkirk Mine to the power plant. This photo makes it obvious that it is a surface mine. More surprising, large draglines are still being used for mining. I wonder if they are still made
in America.

SWCE

My 1928 RR Atlas shows that SOO ran through here, thus the rrWC label. The SWCE PDF file indicates the plants are now served by the Dakota Missouri Valley Western Railroad, thus the rrNew label.

This photo shows the conveyor belt with storage silos that goes from the Falkirk Mine to the power plant.

Bojidar93, Aug 2010

In 2009 they added a facility that uses waste heat to dry the lignite. This process also removes some of the impurities from the lignite creating a product they call DryFine. They burn this in their own two 550 Mw boilers and also ship it in covered hoppers to another combined heat and power plant. Waste heat is also used to dry corn from the fall harvest so that it can be stored in bins. Regular grain elevators have to burn a lot of natural gas to dry grain for storage. Farmers generally burn propane in their grain dryers.

Coal Creek scrubs mercury and other toxins as well as sulfur dioxide. Their scrubbing technique allows them to sell the fly ash to reduce the amount of cement needed to make concrete. So fly ash reduces the carbon footprint of making cement, a very energy intensive process.

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This is obviously the video they show before plant tours.
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(new window starting at 0:45) This video has talking heads, but the scenes of mining equipment in action makes listening to the "we take care of safety and the environment" worth tolerating. (source)

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Forest Park Towers: (CSX+CN)/(B&OCT+WC) vs Aban/C&NW/CGW vs Aban/CA&E

(New Tower Flickr; Satellite According to Global Earth images: In 2000, the tower was east of the billboard. In 2002, there was just a concrete slab.)
NorthAmericanInterlockings:  new tower (old tower photos are below)
Chicago and Northern Indiana Railroad Interlocking Towers (click the marker for more information)

Great Western Junction was another name for this junction.

William Shapotkin posted two photos with the comment:

Great Western Junction -- located at Beloit Ave in Forest Park, IL, is where the CGW mainline began (trains operated over the B&OCT east of that point). Here are two pix of that tower BEFORE construction of the Congress (now Eisenhower) Expressway obliterated everything.
1. This view (looking west) shows an E/B CA&E train x/o the B&OCT. The CGW branches off to the left -- the B&OCT (WC) to the right.
2. This view (looking east) shows a W/B CA&E train arriving Des Plaines Ave station. The tower is at left.

Dennis DeBruler Using the second photo, I can conclude that the tower is the taller building on the right of the first photo.

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Great Western Junction -- located at Beloit Ave in Forest Park, IL, is where the CGW mainline began (trains operated over the B&OCT east of that point). Here are two pix of that tower BEFORE construction of the Congress (now Eisenhower) Expressway obliterated everything.

This view (looking west) shows an E/B CA&E train x/o the B&OCT. The CGW branches off to the left -- the B&OCT (WC) to the right.
Thomas Kaufman I have seen this photo before. I never noticed the East platform of the Des Plaines Av station behind the upper left of the CA&E car. Since this was a single car and there was a third rail gap because of the interlocking the motorman really had to work up a huge rate of speed to cross the gap and not get stuck. I think I remember there was a stinger pole they could use to get moving again if stuck that energized the single car trains to get them moving. DOuble car trains connected together crossed the gap easily. ,
William Shapotkin You are correct Thomas Kaufman -- the Des Plaines Ave station platform is visible at left. Have other pix at this location (including a CGW motor car train x/o the CA&E) -- but (as that (and other) pix have not yet been scanned), am unable to show them at this time. All my photo work is on slide film (NO, I do NOT trust electronic storage) and, after amassing a collection of over 200,000 slide images, am not about to start scanning all that stuff (hey -- if I had that much time available to me, I'd be out taking more pix, not scanning the stuff I already have).

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Great Western Junction -- located at Beloit Ave in Forest Park, IL, is where the CGW mainline began (trains operated over the B&OCT east of that point). Here are two pix of that tower BEFORE construction of the Congress (now Eisenhower) Expressway obliterated everything.
This view (looking east) shows a W/B CA&E train arriving Des Plaines Ave station. The tower is at left.

Some details concerning the CA&E, WC, and CGW before I discuss a 1938 aerial photo.


CA&E is the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin interurban. It joined the Metropolitan West Side "L" at Bellwood for access to Wells Street Terminal.

1938 Map from DeBruler

Northern Pacific helped finance Wisconsin Central building into downtown Chicago and building Grand Central Station. Because this was one of the later railroads built into Chicago, they had to buy a lot of expensive land downtown. WC went bankrupt soon after and B&O bought the assets, including the station, out to Madison Street in Forest Park as an addition to B&OCT. Today CSX owns the B&OCT route and CN owns the WC route. But the segment east of the BRC tracks is now out-of-service. (The official reason I read is that the bridges are too low to clear autoracks and double-stacks. The unofficial reason I read is that the developers along the route complained to a Daily about train noise.) And CN bought EJ&E so they quit using the WC route through Forest Park. So now the only segment used is between BRC and the Ferrara Pan Candy Company.

The Chicago & Great Western was also a later railroad built to Chicago. It arrived in 1887. By this time the city realized that railroads cut up the city and were disruptive. (This is a couple of decades before the city forced all of the railroads to elevate their tracks.) So it required new railroads to cooperate and build a single shared route into the city. In this case, the CGW joined the WC at Forest Park (Forest Home in 1880s) per William's first photo.


The red rectangle highlights the tower. The WC crossed the CA&E and then the CGW.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Building I-290 in the 1950s required a new tower. Photos: Davidson and Allen. The CGW was not abandoned until after 1968. Looking at a 1962 aerial photo, the CTA terminal was smaller and the CGW route (red) had its own overpass over Des Plaines Ave. The CA&E route (yellow line in the lower-left corner) is now just a couple of stub tracks. I wonder why the new tower was built on the east side of the I-290 overpass since the actual junction was on the west side.

Satellite plus Paint

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CN/WC Arcola High Bridges over St. Croix River

(Bridge Hunter (has several construction photos below John's photos), Historic Bridges, John Weeks III, Satellite)

John Weeks III

Technically this is not an arch bridge. Judging from this construction photo, it is a cantilever bridge. But I also labeled it as an arch bridge to make it easier to find.

Photo from Bridge Hunter, Public Domain: Published Prior to 1923

Jordan Palmer posted two photos with the comment:

Wisconsin Central Bridge at Arcola, Minnesota then and now. Built in 1884 by Union Bridge and Iron Works it was part of WCs route from Chippewa Falls to St. Paul. The original bridge was removed on February 28 1916 following replacement with the Arcola Highbridge completed in 1909. First photo is from Minnesota Historical Society, second one is mine from several years ago.

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Harvey Henkelmann commented on Jordan's posting
And here is it's famous replacement

Digitized by Google

Jordan Palmer posted two photos with the comment:

Couple more shots of my favorite bridge, the Arcola High Bridge, aka the Soo Line or Wisconsin Central Higbridge. The bridge stands roughly 185 feet above the St Croix River below at normal water level, and has five arches each roughly 300' long, plus approach trestles on each side stretching the bridge to nearly 1/2mile total length. The first photo is from a river trip nine or ten years ago now, and the second is from September of last year when I was finally able to catch a train rumbling across it. The Arcola High Bridge is now nearly 110 years old, and replaced the original Arcola crossing just down river 3/4mile that was built in the 1880s removing the long steep grades on both sides of the river as the original bridge was only about 70' above the river.

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Jordan Palmer commented on his posting
One of my winter shots from few years ago.

Jordan Palmer commented on his posting
And a shot from bout 1/2 mile or so south bout five years ago.

A better exposure of the construction photo:

Digitized by Google

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Pennsy's 12th Street Junction = C&NW Taylor Street plus B&OCT Rockwell Street

What Pennsy called 12th Street was really B&OCT Rockwell Street where the B&OCT crossed both C&NW and Pennsy/Panhandle/Chicago & Great Eastern (C&GE) and C&NW Taylor Street where the C&NW and C&GE crossed each other to switch sides in the corridor.

The B&OCT Rockwell Street junction was important when passenger trains were still running because both the Wisconsin Central and the Chicago Great Western used this B&OCT route to access Grand Central Station. WC built the route with Northern Pacific's funding because NP wanted to use the WC to access the Chicago market. (By the time this route was built, Chicago was forcing new railroads to share a route into the city to reduce the city being cut up by railroads. NP had to buy and tear down a lot of buildings to build this route.) But the NP went bankrupt in the panic of 1893, and B&O bought a lot of NP's Chicago assets and created the B&OCT to own those assets. This route is now abandoned because 1) CGW no longer exists, 2) no passenger trains are running and Grand Central Station was quickly torn down to be a vacant lot to this day, 3) the city condemned some of the bridges between BRC and downtown, and 4) CN bought EJ&E as well as SOO/WC and uses the EJ&E rather than run trains past people's homes in Forest Park. (But the Forest Park people might be in for a surprise because CREATE B1 includes a crossover between IHB and CN tracks that would again allow CN to run trains through Forest Park to the BRC connection. I see that CREATE has given up trying to maintain a project status map. So I don't know if B1 is done yet.)

Image from RailFanGuides

1938 Aerial Photo form ILHAP

Satellite

Bob Lalich Flickr
This photo shows the multiple crossings of the CTT/B&OCT, CNW and PRR Panhandle near 14th and Rockwell shortly after the railroads were elevated. Note what appears to be an interlocking tower on the left and a signal bridge in the distance. I thought these crossings had always been non-interlocked and the connections were manned by switchtenders on the CNW and B&OCT but this photo may indicate otherwise. At the time of the photo, passenger trains were running on this part of the Panhandle using the north end of the old Union Station.

John Uhlich commented on a posting:

My memory of the Pan Handle is coming back...been years since I even thought of this: when headed for the Penn Central's 47th St. (?) Yard from Rockwell Sub., we would stop at Taylor St. 47th St. yard is now a CSX intermodal yard and has been for many years. When we got the highball, we had to have a highball from both Taylor St. and the B&O switch tenders. B&O switch tender was only a couple of hundred yards at most further south from Taylor St. B&O switch tender had a different colored light or flag (daylight) and depending on what road you were, you needed the correct color light or flag to proceed. I seem to recall If you were coming off CNW you got a white light or flag, if coming off B.O.C.T. you needed a green light, and if you were coming off Pan Handle you got a yellow light or flag. B&O switch tender lined us up for the Pan Handle. The Pan Handle tracks were on the west side of the elevated RR combined right of way for the CJ, CSX (B.O.C.T.) and then the Pan Handle. Once we got down to 47th St. (?) interlocking, the B&O tower operator would line train up to cross the B.O.C.T. mainline tracks and into the Penn Central yard. I recall there was a large malt house at the very north end of the yard but it closed years ago and was probably demolished.

Dennis DeBruler I had to do some head scratching to determine that what C&NW called Taylor Street was called 12th Street by Pennsy and some other maps I have seen. At one time it certainly was a very complicated junction: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46264216@N08/19528595570/
Dennis DeBruler Now it is greatly simplified: https://www.google.com/.../@41.8671734,-87.../data=!3m1!1e3
Dennis DeBruler A 1987 view by Bob Lalich: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46264216@N08/19064724884/
John Uhlich That's the place! That rusty rail is where the Pan Handle was...
John Uhlich That abandoned brown brick factory building tot he left and the smokestack have been long gone...property was redeveloped years ago. Sat vacant for a long time before it was redeveloped. Can't remember what type of factory it was....the first time I rode down Rockwell Sub back in 1974 at night it seemed like a long, dark tunnel lined with abandoned brick buildings....one by one they were all demolished. Including the National Guard Armory on Madison St.
John Uhlich Dennis DeBruler That control tower you see in distance is right where the old B&O switch tender's shanty would have been. Incredible photograph! Where the heck do they get such old photos?
John Uhlich Dennis DeBruler That factory to the right of about 4 or 5 stories appears to be involved in manufacturing windmills and railroad equipment. Later the Wheeling Company made corrugated cans and barrels there. I am sure anyone over age of 60 remembers the old Wheeling brand trash cans before the advent of plastic garbage cans. That building was torn down many years ago.
Bob Lalich After constructing the SC&S in the late 1880s, most of the Panhandle passenger trains used the SC&S between Bernice Jct and Colehour Jct, then the Ft Wayne line to reach the south end of Union Station. I believe any remaining secondary passenger trains using the original Panhandle line into the north end of Union Station were gone by the 1920s.

Dennis DeBruler commented on John's posting
Dennis DeBruler From the 1916 map in the Files section, I highlighted the Bernice Cutoff in Yellow. The PFW&C was the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad. It was part of Pennsy's mainline between Chicago and NYC. The PCC&StL was the Panhandle that we have been discussing. Note that the Panhandle had a lot of grade crossings with railroads as well as roads. The PFW&C had a grade crossing with just the Rock Island at Englewood. NS got the Pennsy tracks at Englewood and Metra got the RI tracks. That grade crossing was recently removed by the CREATE P1 project that raised Metra over NS: https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../10/create-p1.html

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WC: Wisconsin Central -> Soo -> WC -> CN

I've learned that the railroad name Wisconsin Central is like the TP&W name -- it has confused me because the same name was used for multiple railroads. Wikipedia has a page that clarifies the usage of the name:

• Wisconsin Central Railroad (1871–1899), Wisconsin Central Railway (1897–1954), and Wisconsin Central Railroad (1954–1961), successive names for a predecessor of the Soo Line
• Wisconsin Central Ltd., regional railroad acquired by the Canadian National Railway in 2001
  • Wisconsin Central Transportation, parent of the above

My interest in the Wisconsin Central (WC) is that the name keeps appearing concerning the 19th century railroads and passenger stations in Chicago. It turns out that all of those names include the trackage I'm interested in -- the route from Wisconsin into Chicago. But the names before 1961 became owned by the Soo Line which was owned by the Canadian Pacific (CP) and the Ltd. name became owned by the Canadian National (CN).

Wikipedia

The WC was the only land grant railroad in Wisconsin. It was chartered on February 4, 1871. Like the Illinois Central, it was granted land in the middle of the state to help open up what was wilderness at the time. It reached St. Paul in 1884 and Chicago in 1886. Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) started leasing it in 1889 and built the Grand Central Station.

The NP terminated its lease in 1893 because it went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893. That is when the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) bought a lot of the Chicago assets of the WC and formed the B&O Chicago Terminal Railroad (B&OCT). A 1900 Wisconsin railroad map had not been updated and still shows WC having all of its Chicago assets (below). I include the CB&Q part because it is interesting how the names of the towns have changed. East Grove is now Fairview and Greggs would be Westmont. And the Belmont Station did not even exist back then.

The WC branch happens in Franklin Park. 

Understanding the WC history clarifies another issue -- why some times the Soo Line is part of the CP and other times it is part of the CN. Alternatively, why only relatively recently the Soo yards were the Bensenville Yard. The Soo Line owned WC tracks until it got rid of most of them as the WC Ltd. in the 1980s after it bought the midwest assets of the Milwaukee Road (MR) when the MR went bankrupt.

According to a 1908 map, the WC route in Illinois goes through Antioch, Lake Villa, Grayslake, Libertyville, Wheeling, Des Plaines, Orchard Place (now O'Hare Airport), Franklin Park and River Forest. It is interesting to note that there are about twice this many towns in the 1908 map, but I listed only those that also appear on today's Google map. This route explains why I now sometimes see CN trains going over the entrance to O'Hare Airport.

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