Observe the photo here…http://ilaerialphotos.com/images/counties/Cook/images/0bwq03025.jpg
On the lower left hand quadrant …when you enlarge it…there is a track that is in the shape of a figure 8…anyone know what the purpose was for this? There is an exit coming off the bottom of the puzzle here into a trainyard…was it for testing cars?
How bizarre. Maybe it’s to signal space aliens?..[:P]
Tom
Oh, I forgot…referenced from here…http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/177956.aspx
It’s a giant slot car track.
Doh! Now why didn’t I think of that! [D)]
Blownout,
Unless I’m seeing it wrong, it looks like the upper and lower portions on the right side of the “8” is connected together; unless it’s just a short stub track off the upper part.
Tom
It does look like a stub end track from here…although that line seems to extend right to the other loop…also, I noticed that there seems to be a number of boxcars(?) sitting on the upper portion of the figure 8…someone on the other thread mentioned something about a USRA factory being near that site…I’m now wondering if it may not have been a test track of a sort…[:^)]
Maybe they’re checking the boxcars for proper NMRA overhead track clearance. [(-D]
Tom
[(-D][(-D]
I cannot even hazard a guess as to what the figure 8 is, but the aerial photos, of course, are of Cook County in which the City of Chicago is located.
It is very cool to look at the aerial photos of the area just south of downtown Chicago and see the track configurations for Central Station, Dearborn Station, LaSalle Street Station, Grand Central Station and all of the yards south of these stations.
Thanks for sharing.
Rich
Egads! You’re right! How atypical. I have absolutely no idea.
Here’s another website that’s fun to peruse…
This shows the figure 8 track being dismantled sometime between 1952 & 1961
There…fixed…good site too!!
Blownout,
[^o)] Hmmmmm…All I get is ~10 second clip of a cat trying to scale a wall. Impressive though…
Tom
Not trying to scale a wall… succeeding in scaling a wall! [:D]
Now we got it…dang thing…forgot I still had to copy/paste the link…
Read my signature lines.
I put that in there because after seeing soooo many shows on Discovery and History Channel and the like about how mankind just could NOT have built/made/erected soooo many old and huge structural wonders of the ancient world, that Aliens MUST have done it instead, I finally looked at My Other Half one night and said “OK. They have finally conviced me. They are right. The Aliens did it.”.
From then on it has been our “secret phrase” applied to any unexplainable or unbelieveable thing.
The Aliens probably gave the ideas for a steam locomotive to the first guy to think it up.
And do you really think mankind can think up a figure 8 on his own?
So, remember, The Aliens did it.
And yes, It is MOST CERTAINLY a signal to the Aliens!!
Sawtooth,
The problem was that the cat had to keep doing it again and again; hence the use of the term “trying” [swg]
Tom
Thanks for the edit… for whatever reason, I couldn’t get it to recognize it as a link.
That’s a great site, especially if you’re looking for old depots and roundhouses. It has aerials of most major cities… so many places to waste time exploring! For instance, Cleveland was absolutely inundated with roundhouses back in the 50s and now there’s only 1 left that I know of…
Going a few directories up - to Cook, and then down to key, it seems like image bwq 03-025 is in the southern part of Chicago, row 8 from bottom of index image, about 3/5ths of the way from the left to the right:
http://ilaerialphotos.com/images/counties/Cook/key/Cook_S.jpg
If anyone can identify streets in the area, it should be possible to google adresses to try to figure out what this was.
Smile,
Stein
I see someone found a photo of my old 1:1 scale layout.
I dismantled it because I felt it was unprototypical, also very expensive to operate.
