Any intermodals going to the west coast would most likely go north from G4 to UP’s overland route - unless UP is routing some LA trains via the sunset route but I don’t think it is as I believe the sunset route is longer - but maybe someone more in the know could chime in here. G4 makes sense for intermodals going south from Chicago.
Regarding general through freight, UP’s preferred Chicago - St. Louis routing is via the C&EI line, not via the Alton line (G4 is on the Alton line). Not sure why - but there is a good bit of freight traffic on that line. The only reason UP is putting freight on the Alton line is because G4 is on the alton line and is not easily accessible from the C&EI line, but either line does just find brining traffic up from St. Louis.
I always understood the 20 freights per day to be trains on the old Alton Route. I drove down to Bloomington, IL mid June and on a Saturday they were out there layin’ those concrete ties.
The new UP Joliet facility (who’d a ever thunk of the UP in Joliet?) will handle freight to/from El Paso west to LA via the Golden State Route/BNSF trackage rights; and to/from Texas/Mexico over the Alton Route. I can see 20/day between Texas/Mexico and Chicago/Points Beyond. (Throw in a little Little Rock UPS and some Louisiana)
Are you positive of G4 access to the chillicothe sub? I drove the road on the western border of G4 a month ago and there were no grade crossings… and unless a new connector was built in Joliet since the last google earth photos there is no direct access to G4 from the chillicoth sub without a lenghty back up move from Joliet…
Flat wheels, truck hunting, overloaded wheels/ axles/ trucks, ‘crabbed’ or angled or out-of-square/ parallelogram trucks, etc. on heavy freight trains are well-known to degrade high-speed tracks quickly. When W. Graham Claytor, Jr. was CEO of Amtrak, he once told an interviewer for Trains (Don Phillips ?) that they could almost measure the degradation of the track geometry and quality parameters after the passage of a single nightly ConRail general/ manifest freight train.
The connector was being built during G4’s construction, but perhaps it is not yet in service? That surprises me as UP intermodal traffic has increased on the Chilli Sub during the past year or so.
Interesting… I’m going to drive down to G4 again when I get a chance to make sure I didn’t miss anything last time I went by there…
For UP trains coming up the transcon besides G4 I guess the only yard they have direct access to without some very creative routing and backup moves would be G II with the connector to the harbor belt and the transcon in the eastern quadrant of McCook junction - but I have a question about that - is that actually a connector or an industrial lead that just connects to both tracks? On gooogle earth it looks more like just the industrial lead…