A map was published in the mid 70’s entitled Chicago Terminal District by the Chicago Switching Committee. It is a very detailed map, similar to the current CORA map with locations and names of yards, plus an outline of the “Boundary of the Switching District”.
What exactly was the “switching district”? The district was very irregularly shaped and included certain segments of lines (IC all the way south to Park Forest South) but completely avoided other segments (such as EJE’s outer belt and surprizingly the CNW west of Proviso Yd).
Back in the previous career in LTL trucking we had the “Chicago Commercial Zone” which was more or less an exempt area for ratemaking and certain regulations.
Is the switching district a reciprocal switching zone in which the origin or destination railroad only received a switching charge and no portion of the line haul?
Ah yes, the “Commercial Zone” and the “Switching District”. It’s good to remember.
The switching district was (maybe still is) an area in and around Chicago where every shipper/receiver was open to reciprocal switching. As an example, that meant that an IC rate on a shipment to Chicago destined to a receiver located on the C&NW within the district applied to the shipment. The delivering railroad didn’t get a cut of the through rate.
The IC switched the car to the CNW, or went through another carrier, and the CNW delivered it. The CNW would then bill the IC for a switching charge. It worked the same on outbound loads. The delivering/originating railroad didn’t get a division of the through rate, it got a switching charge.
Other locations had similar arrangements.
One of the great stories was a company named “Oil Products”, IIRC. They screwed up and located a new facility, which shipped and received by rail, acro
If you happen across an old Official Railway Equipment Register, look in the “Freight Connections and Junction Points” at the end of each listing. The switching districts are listed therein as footnotes to the locations involved. I haven’t taken a peek at these lately, but, as I recall, the cities/areas that had the switching districts are/were not always the “usual suspects.”