What or where is Global 1 , 2, 3. I got a short explaination and didnt get much of it. Colin
Global 1,2, and 3 are Intermodal Yards. I believe Global 2 is in Rochelle Illinoise. The others I don’t know.
Global I is close to downtown Chicago (I seem to recall it is also called Wood Street Yard by some), Global II (also known by some as “The Falcon’s Nest”, in reference to the old C&NW Falcon fast intermodal service) is part of the Proviso yard which is technically in Northlake, near suburban Elmhurst with I-294 (the Tri-State Expressway) to the west, Manheim Road to the East and Rt. 64 (North Ave.) to the North (these are very rough boundaries, not exact by any means), and Global III is our in far western Rochelle. All three are inter-modal yards where such trains are made up for shipment west or broken down for shipment within the greater Chicago market or transfer to other railroads for further shipment of longer distance. I am sure Carl can expound on this description and correct any incorrect statements I have made here, which I would gladly have him do.
Hi, Colin! (Jim, too!)
Global 1 is built on what was formerly CNW’s Wood Street Yard, augmented by what was B&O’s Robey Street Yard. The “Falcon’s Nest” would have been Wood Street, as that’s where those “Birds” originated.
Global 2 is at Proviso–if you’re at the Berkeley station on Metra you’re looking at the west end of it, behind the departing manifests. It basically took the place of Yard 1 and Yard 2. Even though the manifest operation at Proviso surrounds it, it’s a separate entity, and has its own station identification symbol.
Global 3 was built by the UP (as opposed to the others, which CNW built), west of Rochelle.
All three of these Globals deal exclusively with double-stack trains. Any remaining TOFC/COFC business is handled by Canal Street, along the former C&WI tracks where they go under Interstates 90 and 94.
Carl:
Were Wood Street and Robey Street yards passenger car yards back in the day? or loose car freight yards?
ed
Global I - International containers.
Global II - Domestic containers
Global III - Eastbound stack trains drop their non-destination block(s). There are transfer runs between Global III / Global II and Global III / Global I. Also, originates some westbound trains.
There’s also a joke with the train crews when traffic gets heavy on the Geneva Sub… Dekalb is Global II & 1/2 and Nelson is Global III & 1/2.
CC
If memory serves correctly, CNW/Wood Street was the near-downtown-Chicago produce terminal. I’ve heard people refer to it as “the potato sheds.” The yard probably handled mostly reefers.
Some of the Wood Street operation can be seen from the north side of the Q’s triple track raceway, a little ways east of Clyde Yard.
Wood Street Yard is the old potato / spud yard for carloads of potatoes that used to be received / processed there.
CC
I’m pretty sure Robey Street served as B&O’s coach yard for as long as Grand Central Station was in use (would have included the C&O runs). But it probably handled some freight work as well.
Wood Street used to be an interchange point for some of our eastern connections (C&O and EL come to mind), and it had its “spud yard”. The Chicago Produce Terminal was something different, located closer to the river. There used to be CNW jobs that would go to the CPT, but I never worked one of them, so I hesitate to say anything about their location.
Yep Carl is right the Wood Street yard was in the day known as the spud yard, then it was converted to the Falcons Nest because the yard was the easiest to convert to TOFC oprerations, it was built with the tracks set in concrete allowing the loading of trailers. I think it was one of the first places the CNW used massive forklifts to load and unlod trailers instead of backing them on to the flat cars . Larry
Nowadays Global 3 is used for the UPS service over BNSF’s Transcon. Most intermodel traffic over the Transcon goes through one of these yards at some point.
The Chicago “Globals” are Union Pacific facilities. They don’t handle BNSF business. UPS uses BNSF at Willow Springs which is colocated with a major Chicago UPS facility.
Yes indeed, TrainManTy is confusing Global III on the U.P. near Rochelle with the LPC (Logistics Park - Chicago) on the BNSF trans-con near Joliet which serves the function he describes.
Tyler may be referring to the fact that the Edelstein Connection was built off the Transcon to the UP Peoria Sub, so certain UP trains on the Transcon could go to Global 3. Haven’t seen UPS on UP, but I don’t stray west of Global 3 too often any more.
Yup. All my knowledge of that area and the intermodel facilites there are from some TRAINS articles a while back about the Transcon. Guess I should leave those Chicago area questions to those who have a better understanding of railroading there…[:-^]
There is both an engineer’s and conductor’s freight pool between Rochelle and Ft. Madison. Not very many turns in them, so probably isn’t a lot of trains.
Carl, we still have a little UPS business. We haven’t lost it all. At least not yet anyway, if rumors are to be believed.
Jeff
I don’t think this distinction between Global 1 and Global 2 is very hard and fast any more. There are plenty of international containers being handled behind me (Global 2).
I know of at least one fairly regular train that operates from Global 3 to Ashland Avenue and the NS. I wouldn’t be surprised if 59th Street (CSX) is a regular destination, too.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve been seeing some neat stuff. Yesterday a train from Global 1 went past the yard en route to Global 3 (if I hadn’t been at the window at just the right time I’d have missed it), powered by UP 1995 (the CNW heritage unit) leading the Two Amigos, CNW 8646 and 8701. The 1995 came back to Global 2 late this afternoon. The Amigos, however, must have made an even quicker turn, because they were headed out of Global 2 with a repo move (repositioning empty stack cars) for Global 3.