I just noticed that all of the crossovers between Forest Ave. and Belmont in Downers Grove, IL were taken out except for the one that goes in to the two tracks north of the mainline tracks. Anyone know what’s going on with that? Is there major construction coming? Will the crossovers get put back in? I noticed the pedestrian fences at the Main St. and Belmont Ave. stations have been removed.
Being from California, I found your description of the location of the removed switches extremely difficult to understand and find. The below link may (“may”) be that location.
AERIAL LINK: West of Forrest Rd. Crossovers
The above seems to be a CP, with powered crossovers and signal bridges. This forumist has no idea why BNSF would do away with such CP switches. If they were hand throw ones, it would be understandable … But power switches, well, I don’t know. Maybe that line is being revamped and crossovers are being re-spaced differently. Hopefully, someone at the forum will have an answer for you.
What you have there is the west end of the affected section. A look at the local yard shows panel track cars and ballast hoppers. The Create project to create a grade separation at Belmont Rd (completed in Oct. 2012) may have resulted in BNSF and Metra agreeing to respace the crossovers, since one of the plusses of the Belmont Rd separation was lengthening the grade-crossing free zone by quite a bit.
K.P. I like your search and explanation. May I add?
Most likely they are the older, sharper, slow order crossovers and have been removed because of the slow speeds required to get through them.
An example, of the same thing, the older AT&SF crossovers out near Lenwood, CA., were removed and replaced with what is commonly referred to as high speed switches. Consider, because of longer BNSF trains operating over the old AT&SF Line, the railroad has opted to move them out to allow for the additional train length. I think it is safe to say, that all the crossover switches from Barstow to the Summit on Cajon Pass, have been replaced. I know the ones in Victorville, Ca., were removed and new ones installed.
I know this isn’t a technical answer but will explain most of the action being taken by the first Class railroads. It is imperative the railroads operate over tracks that will allow them to maintain higher speeds. One of the reasons you are seeing flyovers and over or under passes installed.
Looks like Belmont construction precludes restoring fourth track at a future date without great cost.
A fourth track around Belmont would serve no useful purpose except as a siding. Most of the Chicago-Aurora main is boxed in by the towns that grew up along the line and there isn’t anywhere to put a fourth main track.
I went back and checked 2010, 2011 and 2012 issues of First and Fastest for any mention of this. Since the Belmont underpass was well covered in the “Wire Report” section I’m assuming the crossover removal was part of the project, or of the larger resignalling project. BNSF has definitely replaced a large number of former CB&Q signals and signal bridges on the three track line. Some or all of the outside tracks used to be right-hand “current of traffic” with only the center track bidirectional. The plan seems to be to make this a true three-track section with all tracks signalled in both directions. A change like that might have made the crossovers unnecessary.
Offhand, I’d say that the crossovers west of Forest are superfluous (they might be holdovers from the days when that yard was used as a turnaround point for some of the commuter trains, pre-push-pull. There is a perfectly good set of crossovers a short distance to the east on either side of Maple Street (the diagonally-crossing street). Slow speed of the crossovers may have also played a role in determining which ones would be replaced.
Fourth track? How long ago was that?
This line has been CTC as long as I can remember, and I don’t think that CTC in and of itself would ever make crossovers unnecessary. In fact, this line’s neighbor to the north has been installing crossovers to improve the functionality of its CTC.
That’s right Carl; brag on your own road.
Somebody’s gotta.[;)]
Yup…my 401K depends on the stock going up, which only happens when somebody brags (must have worked; it topped $150 for a while today).
BNSF is still working on a long-running program that will eliminate the old searchlight signals (K.P. calls them target signals, but “searchlight” is the correct term). I know that crossovers were altered further east on the line, so this isn’t entirely surprising.
Carl,
It has been decades since I was a regular commuter on the Burlington and I don’t recall, but Bing Maps show a 4th track, actually a long siding in the area under discussion. It is on the south side of the mains and there are several industry tracks branching off southward.
I am thinking that the crossovers being removed were in place to facilitate the movement of the local freight train into and out of the siding. It seem possible that the sidings are either out of service or in the process of being taken out. Alternatively, BNSF operating management have figured that they can still get the work done without the crossovers.
At any rate, I am sure that local freight movement is quite the minor part of activity on the “Race Track”. Obviously Metra is the 500 pound gorilla in the department that decides on the location of control points for that section of the railroad.
Just about where that orange car is sitting in the aerial photo, there used to be a switch and about 3 tracks split out heading east and ended in the area that is now “Competitive Lawn Care”. I remember back in about 1970 playing baseball with my friends along the yard tracks there watching the men of the CB&Q ride the cars (these three tracks dropped off about 20 feet from the mainline) and working the hand brake to bring the cars to a stop. What stands out in my mind is the awesome sound of the CB&Q switchers, that great paint scheme and lot’s of flange squeaking!! The last thing I remember seeing getting delivered in that yard is box cars full of bricks.
The “Dickey Tool Company” used to get a box car every once in a while just a little east of the little yard I was just referring to. You can see a remnant of the spur that went to Dickey in the aerial shot. An old “Great Northern” boxcar sat on that spur for years.
The “Dickey Tool Company” is still there!
And a little west, you can still see the track that goes in to “Green Grass”. That used to be Edward Hines lumber company and they got loads of wood regularly. The only customer left in Downers Grove is Pepperidge Farm and they usually have between 3-6 cars in their siding.
The siding just north of the three mainline tracks is track from the late 50’s that used to be mainline track. When they put in the current welded rail in 1982, they replaced the one siding track (that was probably laid by Civil War Veterans) with a section of the old mainline track.
BTW, a huge electric component of some sort came in by rail last fall using these siding tracks. I caught the tail end of the component getting moved north up Downers Grove Main Street. I wish I could have watched them move it from the rail car to the flat bed it was on.
But enough of me babbling about great childhood memories.
Getting back to the turnouts getting pulled, I