I took a look back at my "Best (RR) place in Chicago 1980s please? " thread and have paid attention to the responses there…
I’m still lost!
Some of the satelite maps and arial pics you can get on the net are fantastic but when I try to trace/follow the tracks I end up dizzy and mind-boggled. I’ve learnt a huge amount from them though.
So… The questions I’ve been asking about signalling a diamond have sorted out a pattern that makes some sort of sense.
I have a diamond of two distinct RR with an interchange link between them. As sketched so far RR A runs East-West and RR B crosses it South West - North East. The link is in the south,south east quadrant. This orientation is arbitrary and could be rotated to fit to where real RR might be around a fictitious location.
Traffic theory is that RR A runs heavy freight long distance, a little local freight and a few Amtraks. RR B runs mostly local freight, occasional; heavy freight detours and the tail end of a Metra shuttle service. Discussion has brought out the idea that RR B has a bridge traffic of RR C from the south west, over the link to RR A to terminate in a yard just to the east of the layout. This is probably coal traffic but there could be other options.
I have thought about an ex Rock Island route… maybe taken over by CNW… or … ? I guess that the RI route would be the RR B to go with the Metra service???
I think that it’s fair to say that I have locos for almost all the roads that would have been seen in Chicago C1985/6… and probably a few that wouldn’t… That’s everything from NS to Soo. (NS is pushing the envelope a bit… but so is CSX)!
It has occured to me that one way to provide a (weird) logic for all the different roads would be to theorise two diffe
[quote user=“Dave-the-Train”]
I took a look back at my "Best (RR) place in Chicago 1980s please? " thread and have paid attention to the responses there…
I’m still lost!
Some of the satelite maps and arial pics you can get on the net are fantastic but when I try to trace/follow the tracks I end up dizzy and mind-boggled. I’ve learnt a huge amount from them though.
So… The questions I’ve been asking about signalling a diamond have sorted out a pattern that makes some sort of sense.
I have a diamond of two distinct RR with an interchange link between them. As sketched so far RR A runs East-West and RR B crosses it South West - North East. The link is in the south,south east quadrant. This orientation is arbitrary and could be rotated to fit to where real RR might be around a fictitious location.
Traffic theory is that RR A runs heavy freight long distance, a little local freight and a few Amtraks. RR B runs mostly local freight, occasional; heavy freight detours and the tail end of a Metra shuttle service. Discussion has brought out the idea that RR B has a bridge traffic of RR C from the south west, over the link to RR A to terminate in a yard just to the east of the layout. This is probably coal traffic but there could be other options.
I have thought about an ex Rock Island route… maybe taken over by CNW… or … ? I guess that the RI route would be the RR B to go with the Metra service???
I think that it’s fair to say that I have locos for almost all the roads that would have been seen in Chicago C1985/6… and probably a few that wouldn’t… That’s everything from NS to Soo. (NS is pushing the envelope a bit… but so is CSX)!
It has occured to me that one way to provide a (weird) logic for all the different roads would be to theorise two different locations - one for one cluster of locos and another for a different cluster. So i
Dave,
Here is another great we site, if you are interested, showing all of the connecting railroads with the Indiana Harbor Belt:
http://www.dhke.com/ihbarchive/ihbconn.html
Rich
Hi!
I grew up in Chicago and spent a lot of my youth trackside at the C&NW racetrack on the northwest side (near California & Diversey). I also hit the Milwaukee line and saw a lot of the IC and others in the downtown area in the '50s and early '60s.
Recent excursions “back home” were pretty much unpleasant surprises. Multiple trackages have been reduced significantly, fences are everywhere, and much of the traffic (to me) is almost boring. But the kicker is that once reasonably safe areas are now almost war zones. And given that Illinois (and paricularly Chicago) seems to have forbidden law abiding citizens the right to protect themselves, my advice is to be very, very careful about where you go.
Sorry if the above seems critical, for I am just telling it like it is.
Mobilman44