Chicago's historic Brighton Junction. April 2007. ( Gone.)I took this photo one morning, in early April of 2007. This is the much fabled Brighton Junction, located on an elevated railroad embankment just west of the intersection at South Archer and Western Avenues. Already outdated decades ago, this was North America's last manually operated crosstrack junction. It is seen here in it's last months of operation, and was closed on July 3rd, 2007. The operator shanty and one set of manually operated Steam era Semaphore signals, were destined for eventual preservation at the Illinois Railway Museum, while the set of Semaphore signals shown here, were destined for a transportation museum in the State of Virginia. The weekend that the old operation was officially closed, the crosstracks or "Diamonds" as they are known, were replaced along with the approach track. A completely modern State of the art automated signal system now controls the numerous train traffic movements through here today.
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