Monday, December 03, 2007

Westbound Amtrak passing through Brighton Junction. Chicago Illinois USA. January 1988.

There wasn't any snow on the ground at Chicago's Brighton Junction on this sunny winter afternoon in January of 1988, but there was plenty of cold and wind in the air that day.
A westbound Amtrak is seen passing over the Norfolk Southern, and CSX Transportation Company crosstracks, enroute to St. Louis Missouri. In the background is the long gone Campbell Soup Company on West 35th Street, with their unique "Soup Can Water Tank" on the factory roof. Brighton Junction closed in July of 2007, and has been fully automated with new block signals and satelite communications.

3 comments:

Tom Gill said...

I used to love seeing that soup can water tower.

I guess the constant water pressure provided by the city makes these rooftop water towers obsolete.

I remember them on almost every large building downtown and every factory in Chicago. Crane Company - now part of the Corwith yard used to have its own tower. I remember seeing it leaking during the winter - what a large mess of ice that was!

Anonymous said...

Water in the soup can tower?? Why, I thought it was soup up there! :-)

Eddie said...

You know what guys?
I thought that their soup
tasted a Little Watered Down
occasionally. THIS PROVES IT!

Eddie.