Thursday, November 30, 2006

Southbound CSX Transportation intermodal freight train. Brighton Junction. Chicago Illinois USA. October 2006.

A cloudy autum morning in October of 2006, is seen here at Brighton Junction. This busy railroad crosstrack / interchange junction, is located at Archer and Western Avenues on Chicago's near southwest side. A southbound CSX Transportation intermodal train has just recieved a "Raised Semaphore" signal indication, and an order to "Proceed" from the dispatcher. This is an old fashioned "Steam Era" manual junction. Notice the red "Stop Signs" the crews encounter before reaching the crosstracks. All trains are required to stop before recieving further clearance. This busy junction is shared by the Norfolk Southern Railroad -CSX Transportation -The Canadian National Railroad (Ex Illinois Central -Gulf Mobile and Ohio) and several railroads who operate over NS -CSX via trackage rights and interchange arrangements. Amtrak and Metra utilize the east -west Canadian National mainline through here.

2 comments:

tlee169 said...

You covered this well. On 7-16-07 the Chicago Tribune caught up to you covering the long over due transition to 21st Century technology.

Eddie said...

Some of the local Chicago area railfans and railroad workers, refered to this junction as an "Embarassment".
Outdated as it was, "I loved it"!

To Me, railroad crosstrack junctions with no interlocking towers or dispatcher shanties have no personality at all.

Thank goodness for model train layouts.

Thank You.
Eddie.