Just in case you haven’t heard, last Friday night the switchtender shanty at Brighton Park Junction was torched and burned to the ground. Sounds like it could’ve been arson. The only thing NS could salvage out of the wreckage were the levers that controlled the semaphores. The worst part about this whole deal was the fact that NS was planning on donating the shanty to a museum.
[sigh] Another piece of history lost…
I know, it is pretty sad, and this time the railroad had nothing to do with what happened to the shanty. Sounds like vandals burned it down. Why the heck would anyone be interested in burning something like that down? Seems pretty strange to me.
That’s why pyromania is considered abnormal behavior.[;)]
Somewhere somebody was watching the news report (or reading it, or whatever) and said to himself, “Cool! And I did it!”
Hopefully, their bragging will prompt their friends to get them into the padded cell he/she deserves.
I heard that the shanty was to go to the Illinois Railway Museum (presumably with the levers inside), but that the semaphores were not.
Still it’s sad. It’s a shame that NS or IRM didn’t remove the shanty in the three months or more that it’s stood inactive, and even more of a shame that anything so neglected is fair game for people like this with nothing better to do.
(I wonder how I would have fared if I, as a railfan, had come within several hundred feet of the structure!)
Yeah, I would really hate it if whoever did this gets away, plus now this could make it look bad for those who still visit the junction.
Too bad the railroads couldn’t have found some commmon ground and made some effort to set aside an area for and welcome railfans.Maybe with their frequent presence this would not have happened.It sounds also like the IRM sghould have moved a little faster to get the historic shanty to a safe place before winter.
Chico
I’m not sure if IRM was the museum getting it. It sounded like it wouldn’t be IRM getting it from what I heard. I thought IRM was supposed to get some of the semaphores, but I guess not or they would’ve been there by now. People really haven’t visited Brighton since the semaphores came down so that really didn’t help.
it was probably a bunch of young urban terrorists that area isn’t the greatest part of town
What I personally think should happen to somebody who would lite such a fire, or the ones in California for that matter…is not fit for the pages of this forum, so use your own imagination and I am sure you will be close or right on.
So if you are the railroad wouldn’t you ban all people from coming onto your property as they are doing. How can you tell if the guy with the camera claiming to be a railfan is for real or a demented individual?
The more important question is, what’s the difference? [;)]
This is such a pity. Brighton Park was a time travel experience.
Dave Nelson
Yeah, it sure was a neat place with the shanty and semaphores. With those gone, whats the point of going there anyway? Blue Island and Dolton both still have interlocking towers in service, and they are both busier then Brighton Park, plus the only way to access Brighton Park is to trespass. You can stay on public property at Blue Island and Dolton and see even more then you do at Brighton Park. You are reallly taking a risk if you go to Brighton Park nowadays and I’ve heard several people tell me they have been thrown out of there. It is all railroad property so I wouldn’t doubt that.