A friend of mine who’s a drayage trucker said that he heard from another trucker that global 2 is closing within 60 days, and that UP is working on building another new yard global 5 in the Chicago area. Now I have heard absolutely zero about this, so I figured I’d ask to see if there is any truth to it.
which onw is Global 2? the one by Western Avenue BNSF station, or the one by the CN/EJ&E crossing?
Global IV is the new Joliet Intermodal facility. I think Global I is at 14th and Canal in the city and is mostly closing. Global II is a huge facility at the Proviso Yard. Global III is out in Rochelle. I think your drayage friend got the numbers confused.
I’ll have to see what I can find out. It seems unlikely to me that either Global 1 or Global 2 could be closing (if one is, I also think Global 1 is more likely). When Global 4 opened, UP’s Canal Street intermodal terminal closed.
Carl: The UP corporate site lists the address for Global 1 as 1425 S. Western (for the truck entrance) so what yard is at Canal (& what)?
Yeah, I think it’s unlikely G1 or G2 would be closing… and plus I figured if they were someone would have heard something, I just posted it here because I wanted to confirm or deny the rumor for sure. Also G1 is on Western and open, Canal St. yard ran north to south paralleling canal st from about 24th st to 37th st. It is not closed as G4 was the replacement for canal st.
I’m looking at a moth-eaten 1978 map of the Chicago Terminal District, issued by the Chicago Switching Committee, and am totally confused. The terminal alluded to above (near the METRA Western Aveune station) is, I think, what used to be Wood Street, home of the Falcon intermodal trains (back in CNW days). Which Global number does this one carry? – Or is it even open? Then, Canal Street – is that the one that used to be a joint MoP-L&N terminal? If this is the one, which Global is it?#### Please correct me if I’ve got this wrong.#### Incidently, if the former MoP terminal is, in fact, the current Canal Street terminal, it’s easy to see why UP wants to vacate the place. In fact, one can see why they may also want to get out of Wood Street (if they still use it).#### Thanks in advance.
Here are the lat long coordinates for all of UP’s Chicago intermodal operations (just copy and paste the coordinates into Google Earth). This should clarify any ambiguity about their location:
Global 1: 41.861116° -87.677529°
Global 2: 41.898841° -87.911984°
Global 3: 41.906097° -89.101778°
Global 4: 41.471518° -88.111226°
Yard Center: 41.627622° -87.613738°
Canal St: 41.844616° -87.637547°
NOTES:
-The satellite maps on google earth were taken when Global 4 was still under construction, so you’re not going to see a finished intermodal terminal rather you’re just going to see the track layouts and the terminal under construction.
-On google earth canal st. still looks open, because at the time the satellite photo was taken it still was. Canal St. is now closed.
Billio, you’re right–CNW built Global 1 on the site of their old Wood Street terminal and B&O’s Robey Street Yard (which they bought).
Canal Street is probably the MP-L&N yard you described; I don’t really know its prior history that well. I also don’t know its street address–it is from this yard that some UP locomotives ran out onto the Amtrak bridge over the Chicago River before derailing. It was always known as Canal Street–never “Global” anything.
It’s not closed? UP doesn’t originate or terminate anything there any more, as far as I know. But it was operated for UP by Chicago Rail Link, so that company may have some other use for it.
At one point, Global 1 was also known as the CNW “Potato Yard”. Don’t ask me why…
That’s because its predecessor, the Wood Street yard, had a major facility for unloading refrigerator cars coming in from the west, containing you-know-what. There was still a bit of that going on when I caught a few jobs there.
I can say as of yesterday 1-28-2011 the yard still had some action going on. I was in Chicago on business so before I headed home I detoured past the Canal St. Yard and I saw a few trucks coming out with containers loaded on and also there was an empty stack train passing overhead. Did not get to see what the power was on the head end, but there was still something there when I went past.
I used to run drayage out of Chicago abt 10 years ago. Canal St. was the old MP (nee C&EI, IIRC) inner city yd, believe it used to be a coach yard. it did handle some intermodal (mostly domestic EMP) but was mostly trailers, especially USPS and some UPS. Alot of third party trucking company trailers, too. Yellow and Roadway used Canal alot, along with Schnieder and JB Hunt. Knight Trucking used it exclusively. Wisconsin Central also ran a train out of their at the time, IIRC, hence all the Schneider and Knight trailers. Canal also got alot of cross town (rubbered) traffic from Texas and Mexico trains over to Conrail or NS. Trains ran both south and west, as Canal was UP’s main trailer lift (non-container)
Canal would be the most likely to close. It was very cramp, and was a bear to deal with. Only one way in and out, or you got blocked in by bridges. A bad neighborhood, too. Truckers did get robbed going in and out, especially those that made a wrong turn.
Yard Center in Dolton handled a lot of APL and EMP intermodal, along with a lot of UPS, and some USP. Pretty much anything going to Mexico came out of Dolton, Canal handled mostly St. Louis. Everything in between got split, with YC getting the bulk of it. Most of the classification tracks had been ripped out for the intermodal yd. Dolton was a pretty easy and safe yd. to get in and out of. UPS and Ford’s Chicago Heights yd were the bulk of the traffic in Dolton (ie, the Mexico trains), what few yd tracks remained were always full of auto racks, coil cars and high cubes. We used to rubber (wheel, dray, truck, whatever you want to call it, our lingo was rubber) in auto parts by trailer from Detroit and central/southern Indiana to Dolton for rail to Mexico.
Global I is on Western near 26th st., right next to BNSF’s former BN Cosco yd. Used to be a CGW perishables yd. The original home of the Falcon intermodal trains, it was almost exclusive containers when I drove. Mostly APL, EMP and OOCL, but a fair amount of international sh
Well Canal is almost closed, and regarding Global 2, well has anybody gotten any hard facts yea or nay regarding it’s fate? I still doubt that it is closing… and in terms of real estate the Global 1 land would definitely be more valuable than the global 2 land. Also Global 3 and Global 4 are fully built and operational.
Canal Street is the only yard closing. Global 1 and 2 will remain open for now, neither of those are scheduled to close.