My wife went to a conference at Lake Geneva today and I dropped her off at the Oglivie Center downtown Chicago. What a great place. I assume that was the location of the old C&NW station and also their headquarters…correct?
Looking at Google map it seems a line branches off at Harvard and heads west to Chemung. The line seems to end in the middle of the country west of Chemung. What is the purpose of the branch line? The only industry that was apparent was the Dean Foods plant.
What about freight on the line to Harvard and on to Janesville? At one time there was a autoplant there. Is it still in operation? IIRC, it closed a few years ago.
Ogilvie is on the site of the 1912 C&NW Station. Historically, the CNW headquarters were in the old Daily News building, across Canal Street from the station. They moved further north on Canal in the 1980s, and were ready to move elsewhere downtown when the UP merger took place.
The line to Chemung was part of a fairly impressive network of lines that the C&NW once operated. If I’m not mistaken, this was part of the “KD” line that ran between Kenosha and Rockford.
Just spent time recovering mapping from CNW’s Williams Bay District which included Lake Geneva coming up from Elgin (Believe the Chemung line was the other line coming up the Fox River that split off at Elgin [Fox River Switch/FORIS/Tower B-35] to the west side of the river)…my guys are working the Carpentersville/Dundee area. A lot of those lines got killed off by the interurban electric railroads (and automobiles)in the same place during the 1930’s.
You might find interesting the book I have called (cleverly enough) “KD Line” by Behrens. It documents the entire line and has lots of excellent old photos of the area; It is listed at Amazon, but it is a collectable and sells for a mere $125.
Think we spent well in excess of $125 already, but will keep an eye out for the book regardless.
Stations/Milepost Locations
Direction is westward from Elgin
Distance is from Chicago via West Chicago
30.0 West Chicago
35.3 Wayne
39.2 South Elgin
41.0 Tower B-35 42.8 East Elgin 47.6 Dundee
48.4 Carpentersville
52.9 Algonquin
58.3 CS Jct. (Crystal Lake)
58.7 West Wye Switch (Crystal Lake)
61.3 Terra Cotta
65.8 McHenry
69.5 Ringwood
75.6 Richmond
77.3 Genoa City
80.4 Pell Lake
85.9 Lake Geneva
90.1 Lake Como
91.9 Williams Bay
1 track, unsignaled.
(As usual, the trail people are clueless about what they are responsible for -and- as an early NITU grant, they failed to notify STB when the reponsible “trail entity” changed the past few times.(figures[sigh]) Hope the wrong person [or the nutcases at NARPO] doesn’t hit them with the consequences for which “we didn’t know” won’t save them from an expensive title fight that they can very possibly lose.)
The Janesville GM plant did indeed close a few years ago, around the end of 2008.
What I always found interesting in Janesville is how the WS main line goes through the GM assembly plant. Must have been interesting running a big train right through an industrial complex. Kinda like how the old North Shore tore right through the middle of the AMC plant in Kenosha, except the North Shore didn’t putz along at 10mph.
Is there any freight handled on these lines? Obviously Metra has numerous trains to Harvard, but as far as the Chemung line branching west at Harvard??? Doesnt seem like much industry on Google maps.
There is a grain elevator at the end of the line at Chemung. I have never seen cars there, but it does have the trackage to handle a subtantial block for loading.
Before abandonment, that line generally followed IL Route 173 before swinging northward to Beloit. About two miles of the Beloit end remains to reach a large and busy grain elavator in South Beloit, IL. That segment is reached from Clinton, WI at a connection with the (formerly) Milwaukee Road’s Racine and Southwestern. The C&NW’s acquisition of that line kept them in the Beloit market.
I do not know if the UP now serves any industries in Janesville. There auto racks and some locomotives in the yard next to the GM plant, probably in “storage” status. The Wisconsin and Southern is fairly active in Janesville, and it is possible that some of their traffic may go to the UP at Janesville. I’d suspect that UP runs up to Janesville may be more on the order as needed. Perhaps Janesville is assigned to the same job that runs over to Beloit.
Jay, the latest issue of North Western Lines says that MPRPR still runs to Janesville three times a week. It seems to depart in the evening now, which is about twelve hours away from what I remember when I was working. It sounds like it takes stuff to WSOR and picks up their cars for forwarding to Proviso.
The Harvard-Chemung portion is run by the Chicago & Chemung Railroad. They have an EMD switcher over at the grain elevator west of Chemung. It is number 202, I think it is an SW7/9. It came from the Chicago, Madison & Northern and is (or was) painted in their CGW-like scheme last time I saw it a few years ago. It is kept inside when not in use, so you have to get it when they are loading grain.
There is quite a bit down around South Beloit, IL/Beloit, WI that the UP still serves. Down in South Beloit they serve the Demeter Grain facility and the place that gets powdered cement in the hoppers just south of there. The sand pit just west of the line at South Beloit is where the ‘Sandman’ trains used to load. These went into the Chicago area for use in road construction projects, but I don’t think he ran last season. Also in Beloit, the UP can go up and serve the remains of the old Fairbanks-Morse facility. The Coltec plant still makes O-P primemovers that are used in US Navy ships. They ship out a few loads a couple of times a year.
In Janesville, WI the UP still serves a chemical facility by bringing in tank cars down off the Afton Line on the far southwest side of town. They also still serve the Anderson sand plant up north of town (as does the WSOR). There may be a couple of more things for the UP in Janesville. It seems like there is an industry or two right by the yard–one of them a Farm Service-type place.
The UP still goes out to Evansville, WI too to serve a large grain loading facility out there with a loop track. They seem pretty busy and probably load a train about once every two weeks or so.
Although the ballast pit up at Rock Springs, WI hasn’t loaded trains for the past couple of years, the UP did bring rock trains down through Janesville and into Chicago. WSOR crews would take them from Janesville up to the pit and back down to Janesville and the UP would run them beyond. If the UP has any major track projects on the eastern end of the system in the coming
The interurbans didn’t kill off any of these lines. They were all abandoned long after the interurbans had passed from the scene. All of these abandonments occurred during my working career (I did some of them). I may be a fossil, but I wasn’t around in the 1930’s.
The line that “split off” from the Lake Geneva - Williams Bay line at Elgin and went to the west side of the river was the line to Rockford and Freeport (the original Galena & Chicago Union). It is still in operation to Rockford as the UP Belvidere Subdivision, and serves the Chrysler assembly plant at Belvidere.